<div class="line">She lay quietly as if she</div>
<div class="line">could wake,</div>
<div class="line">and only pretended</div>
<div class="line">not to know</div>
<div class="line">what our call intended;</div>
<div class="line">but her dress was fresher</div>
<div class="line">than it should have been,</div>
<div class="line">and straighter;</div>
<div class="line">and the eyes were closed</div>
<div class="line">in something more than sleep,</div>
<div class="line">and greater.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/LedbetterGrandmother.mp3"></audio></figure>

Missing in Action

Match Girls

Grandmother

<p><em>(Southern Illinois)</em></p>
<p>The letter said you died on your tractor crossing Shoal Creek.<br />
There were no pictures to help the memories fading like mists off the bottoms<br />
that last day on the farm when I watched you milk the cows,<br />
their sweet breath filling the dark barn as the rain that wasn’t expected sluiced<br />
through the rain gutters. I waited for you to speak the loud familiar words<br />
about the weather, the failed crops—<br />
I would have talked then, too loud, stroking the Holstein moving against her stanchion—<br />
but there was only the rain on the tin roof, and the steady swish-swish of milk<br />
into the bright bucket as I walked past you, so close we could have touched.</p>


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August 1, 2011GrandmotherJ.T. Ledbetter

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August 1, 2011GrandmotherJ.T. Ledbetter

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Crossing Shoal Creek by J.T. Ledbetter