It's just poetry, it won't bite

Budget


08.25.12 Posted in today's words by

Carol L Gloor is a semi-retired attorney who had been writing, mostly poetry, for 40 years. Her work has appeared in print and online, most recently at Christian Century, Sow’s Ear, Slant, Exit 13, Stymie: A Journal of Sport and Literature, and in the anthology A Bird in the Hand: Risk and Flight. Her chapbook, Assisted Living, is forthcoming at Finishing Line Press. Carol is a member of the Chicago poetry collective Egg Money Poets.

Budget
By Carol L Gloor

My parents didn’t believe in checkbooks, only passbooks,
where interest was entered–ka-ching
at the bank, only the passbook and the envelopes
in the kitchen drawer marked
rent, food, spending, electricity, miscellaneous,
later phone, and even later, when they both
learned to drive, car.

When the money in the envelope was gone,
no more until next month.
Those who could not be paid in cash
received money orders.
Everyone knows you can live indefinitely
on potatoes, beans, and milk.
But mom had her own, from selling shoes
at Rugens, so she and we could have clothes
and money for church.

Every Easter, new little suits, straw hats
for us, a dress for her.
We wore them without coats,
even at thirty degrees, proud
to be seen, as we slipped our dimes
into the offering plate.




4 Responses to “Budget”

  1. Erik says:

    Nice, Mom

  2. I remember these days well and so do my children. You stirred up tucked away thoughts that remind us where we came from.

  3. Margie Skelly says:

    Hi, Carol,

    This is a lovely poem and brings back shared moments that you and I have had as sisters! Margie

  4. Barbara says:

    so much love and deprivation…she really did the best she possibly could…an ode to Mom.

Latest Podcast Episode
0:00
0:00
vox poetica archives