Her Sunday Apple Pies

         hit home runs when everything was Gus Triandos flashing
Cal McLish the screwball sign. Her stuffed flank steak scored, too
         & man, could she pull a pork chop down the right-field line

though her parsnips proved too Midwestern, no matter how thick
         the gravy or hard the cheddar. Then everything was Nancy Sinatra
when it wasn’t Honey West, so the good witch of flour & fruit shriveled

         within a week or an hour into Grandmom-smells-how-long-
till-she-leaves? She wrote with a dull pencil, the words so wide she fit
         four, maybe five to a line, the dollar the letter enfolded crisp

from the mint. Outdoors or in, she wore headscarves & Oxfords.
         All the girl cousins could tat, hook rugs, shovel coal in a pinch.
Outhouses were funny, pinochle dead serious. In winter, you fit

         eight bricks on the stovetop so everyone got two for the hot box
at the foot of each bed. You cleaned your plate, grateful for gristle & fat,
         you bet. No jobs, so Heinie got a pallet in the toolshed. Who needs

radio when you can polka? No one they knew got the Spanish flu,
         but polio was something else—poor Helene, but dead legs
didn’t stop her, no sir. Oh woman-smelling-of-below-zero-coal-oil,

         will you ever get done in the bathroom? Will you ever not read
The Upper Room at breakfast, reminisce about Eastern Star, go all
         misty about victory gardens, oleo & Three Lakes? When you leave

this time, you won’t fly, don’t worry. The grown-ups have sprung
         for a sleeper & we’ve made lunch: liverwurst on rye, sweet pickles,
a slice of angel-food cake no match for yours, so blow us a quivery kiss

from the top of the stairs & snuggle in for a nap a little west of Valley Forge.
On the drive home, we’ll say what we must. Love is still simple to us.

John Repp’s most recent book is Fat Jersey Blues, published in 2014 by the University of Akron Press. Two chapbook collections appeared in the autumn of 2019: Madeleine Wolfe—A Sequence (Seven Kitchens Press) and Cold-Running Current (Alice Greene & Co.).