Family Duty

I’ve got to shift my father’s soup bones in the wheelbarrow,

and stir garden soil in the stockpot for my mother.

There’s a ditch that needs digging and stonewall repair in the kitchen.

There’s a woodpile that needs braising and brush that needs sautéing .

Quiches will sprout and roasts will be turned over in the flowerbeds in the Spring.

My parents will tend to those, but right now they just need a little help,

raking flour and dragging steaks to the compost heap.

Afterwards we will cackle together over bottles of inky wine.

To stave off the headache we will each take a bottle of water to our beds,

that will go unsipped, as we sleep our dreamless sleeps.