Aunt Grace’s house greeted me with pies
ready to pop into homemade carriers
destined for diners and coffee shops.
Those lucky devils.

Cooling fruit cobblers
beckoned from her kitchen table
after kindergarten.
She set a slice on my plate,
blackberries oozing out from the tender cake.
What a welcome treat from childhood weight watching.

Aunt Grace’s place was a playground haven.
A rope swing soared from the white pine tree.
Uncle Bill’s homemade jungle gym
so homemade, in fact, that I once got splinters
in my butt when I slid down the slide.

Aunt Grace’s hugs.
Held close to her curves.
Stopped the world outside her arms.

Aunt Grace’s sewing machine
whipped up green saddle bags
with our initials outlined in tooled leather.
Who cared if they were vinyl?

She loved to tell the story
of how I crawled up to the brown cottage
to pat powder on Cousin Court’s bottom.
How great to have a living baby doll.
Myself forever the family baby after mother
miscarried when she slipped and fell
down the basement steps
on her way to do the laundry.

Aunt Grace’s house five decades later.
Attic mold.
Walls stripped back to lath.
Plaster peeling.
An Italian villa in Godfrey, Illinois.
She waits and watches; wants it to fall down
just before she dies.
That would save buyers the trouble of wrecking it.

She follows the news.
Grows herbs.
Bundles up in her 50-degree house.

She pulls out a chair from her kitchen table
to serve tea and cobbler.
But stops, first,
to give me a world-stopping hug.