Sundays with Margaret

Three o’clock on Sundays
before the two-hour drive home
or longer, if there is traffic
I’d turn up
on your doorstep
balancing a plate of cake
or box of doughnuts
and a bottle of semi-decent rum
(if I’d gotten paid)
or rotgut (if the week was lean)
with one hand and
my daughter’s hand clasped in the other.


Hugs, and yes, child, you can play with Candy
Don’t worry if she takes a dog biscuit or two
They’re safe for humans, too.
For me, an ancient cup
filled with tea some sugar
Perhaps a splash of whatever high proof dregs
was left from the week before.
Cigarettes, lit from the embers of the last one
butts filling the plate your teacup nestles in.


We’d sit at the Formica table
and reminisce about people I’d never met
times I hadn’t lived in
places I’d never been
slowly sipping and refilling our cups
until the dog and the child
and the menfolk
decided it was time to plate
the roast or the lasagna or the beans and rice
depending on if it had been
a good week
and how early we were in our cups.


You gave me an apron
a velvet beret
a set of teacups
for my birthday
Christmas
Mother’s Day
when we knew the sun was setting
on our Sundays.

My daughter tucks her child’s curls
into that velvet beret
I tie the apron around my waist
and pour tea, mine laced with spirits
into the fragile cups
for our Sunday tea party