Two Poems by Marcia L. Hurlow

Making Phone Calls for Montgomery Ward

         –Mt. Vernon, Ohio, 1972

“We have a lot of specials today,
Mrs. ___.  Several bedsheet sets, all
sizes one price; they never need to be
ironed,” and I note the page in catalogues
housewives must keep by the phone, as I
sit alone in my cubical that summer.

Toward 5 o’clock they all say they’re
making dinner, call back tomorrow
and I wonder if I’ve made enough
to pay for next semester’s books
or notebooks or toothpaste and shampoo
with the extra twenty-five cents I earn

each time someone orders a flowered
percale from my description, maybe
two if she’s thrifty and recognizes
the bargain in my ragged voice, the plea
as I repeat the colors. Perhaps yellow
will brighten the end of her day.

Once, my shift almost done, a lady,
alone too long in her empty house,
a radio for company blaring
WMVO, asked my name.
I told her, gave my pitch, then she talked
about her son working in another town.

She asked if Anna was my aunt. Her son
works hard, no time, she said, to look
for a wife. Next time he’s home, she’ll
call me. “Marry him, and you won’t need
to go to college.  Is Jean your mother?
I’ll give her a call.  It’ll be special.”                                                                                                                                         

Driving through My Grandparents’
Abandoned Farm with Mother

I turn on the gravel road that runs
behind the barn.  She hears the echo
of bells, cows lowing as they plod
up the hill from the fallow field.

The sun’s still caught on the flash side
of maple leaves, sundown done,
and orange rays line the horizon,
a last call, then everything goes dark

but the moon’s sharp elbow nudging
aside the clouds that shadow
hawthorn and hedgeapples, her eyes.
Then she says that she remembers

the voices of her parents call
“Hey boss, steady!” as they guided
their herd of Jerseys to be milked
and fed, and all to their night’s rest.

____________