Jane spent a morning

picking dandelion greens with Mabelle,

   our ninety-year-old cousin,

then stewed the greens up with salt pork

   according to practice,

as she made red flannel hash out of

   leftover boiled dinnerm

grinding up beets to make the redness

   according to practice.

This was the place where we chose to live.

   Unlike Mabelle, or Kate

and Wesley, we flew to New Orleans

   and London, to Shanghai

and Calcutta, reading our poems.

   We smiled without stopping

at receptions in South Dakota

   and Ohio. We bowed

to applause, submitted to questions

   about how we got

ideas, slept flying home contented,

   and deposited

checks, according to another practice.