1968, ‘69
2018, ‘19:
The Fifty-Year Anniversaries are Almost Over
On the back porch
at sunrise,
I hold my toaster oven
over the rail. I
pop the bottom
tray, brush crumbs
onto the grass
then stay
to listen to crickets.
To their uninterrupted
chirping,
then to chirp-imitating
beeps, as the kneeling floor
of the #15 bus
is lowered to the curb
on Holton Street.
My tiny portion –
my due –
of the brunt of your war
has been arriving.
Ramifications traveling
in steady waves,
rolling in for fifty years
and more
come faster now.
It’s only fit
that I kneel like the bus
to meet them.
About the Author: Sue Blaustein is the author of “In the Field, Autobiography of an Inspector”. Her publication credits and bio can be found at www.sueblaustein.com. Sue retired from the Milwaukee Health Department in 2016, and is an active volunteer. She blogs for ExFabula (“Connecting Milwaukee Through Real Stories”), serves as an interviewer/writer for the “My Life My Story” program at the Zablocki VA Medical Center, and chases insects at the Milwaukee Urban Ecology Center.
More by Sue Blaustein:
Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Sunset at Grover Beach” (2020)
As It Ought To Be 