Poetry
My Mother Plays Bridge
My mother plays bridge every Monday from 10:30 to about 3:30.
Nearly all the players sport blue hair and walkers with tennis balls and often lament
the lack of young folks with an interest in bridge.
Thus they see their lifetimes whirling about in ever concentric circles.
Causes them to fret, but that goes away when the game starts.
I drop mama off a little before time and head on out to the country to piddle
around on the old home place.
She has it leased to a fellow that Daddy liked, so there’s not a whole lot I can do.
But I tinker with fencing, nailing down loose sheet iron on the barn and equipment
sheds, whack brush and so forth.
I get a little dirty, sweat some, wear my hat and slap my gloves against my thigh.
The fellow doesn’t overgraze the place so everything is ok.
A year or so before he died, Daddy called me home for a talk.
I was working in Brazil in those days, so I knew it was not a whim on his part.
I had always helped him around the place and could do things his way and really
enjoyed the rural life.
Even thought about coming home to stay some day.
Turned out that he had decided he was not comfortable with leaving the place to
me as he figured I would never stay put, and he was afraid I would sell out and use
the money to fiddle around with Latin women.
So he said he didn’t want me there unless I became homeless.
And then he willed his outfit to my brother’s son, who is a nice boy but is uncom-
fortable in the country.
Well, until mama no longer needs me, I’ll continue to piddle around out there on
my day off.
I don’t fiddle any tunes north of the River anyway, so everything is ok.
I’ll be glad for the change in weather when it comes.
And when the time comes, I’ll head on back south so as not to disappoint Daddy
too much.
William Stough
22
Cenizo
First Quarter 2012