Late Summer Nights by Diana Martinez

Late Summer Nights.
by Diana Martinez

The late summer wind would
rattle the wooden doors
Latch hook over the steel eye,
keeping the strangers out as well.
The worn wooden screen
at uneven tilt showing the crookedness
of its frame, allowing the flies
to filter in.

We would run back and forth between the outside,
slamming the door behind us
with mud covering our legs and feet.
Hot summer day with the dust flying in swirls.
Laughing and playing in between the white sheets on the lines
we would leave handprints unknowingly.

Mom would just fold the sheets anyway with
the smell of the outside crisply tucked in each fold.
Mom would work long hours in the summer
at the packing house with boxes on long conveyor belts.
Picking large white nectarines with pink stones for their seeds,
yellow peaches, soft to the touch with peach fuzz,
and deep purple plums
whose tartness would never cease.
Finally at the end of summer, deep violet grapes
that hid black widows in their clumps.
She slid them into the wooden boxes.
Mom said I could never work there as I talked too much
and would give her a bad name.
But my older sister would soon go.
She always did what I could not do.