Store

My grandpa bought the building in the sixties,
and won the town with smiling Irish charm.
Eventually the Germans and the Polocks
decided we weren't strangers after all.
Now people of all kinds come through the front-door,
and teh same old farmers stomp in through the back,
where Grandpa spends all sumer fixing mowers
and patching Mrs. Feia's window screens.

My dad took over when he was just thirty,
a year before my big brother was born.
He added on a warehouse anda door bell
which rings a hundred times a day at least,
as old familiar faces "drop on by"
to ask if anyone measured the rain,
to compare their corn and soybean crops,
to share their neighbors' gossip and good news.
While Herman tells me stories of his horses
-first Mystic then the mare he's never named,
Jan brings me paper bags of backyard apples
to take to school when I go back again.

My third grandma shuffles in about noon
with a card and a box full of cookies.
"So sorry I missed your birthday this year"
she grins - but it's my fault, I was out of town.
I huge her and promise to bring up her order
when the truck arrives at four thirty.