Late August, 1968.
A Quonset hut
Married student housing
North of the river
World War II issue
No a.c. in a summer
Of crippling heat
Record humidity
Eight months pregnant
with me, my mother
swelters beneath its metal arc
her student teaching
not yet begun
she’s home all summer,
Quonset-bound.
Does crosswords as,
a few blocks away, my father,
working extra shifts downtown,
comes to terms with
the child-seed he’s planted.
Take three things
from this snapshot:
The heat.
My mother’s taut,
veined belly.
Her solitude.
She steps
from another
icy shower
stands drying
before the fan
eats a frozen
orange slice
Waits.
Sara Anderson is a native Iowan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University. She lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and daughter. She has an affinity for tuxedo cats.
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