________________________________________________________________________________

When my brother and I were very young our Grandmother would read us the happy
excitement of our little gypsy fortunes
in the tea leaves at the bottom of the
empty cup then we would rush
out to the playground.

It’s October.  I am Grandmother’s
age and the mind is mostly
cemetery.  Outside in the
yard the tree’s leaves
are scattered
all over the
ground.
 

________________________________________________________________________________

Dennis McBride is the author of "Looking for Peoria" and "Killing the Mockingbird" (Quiet Lion) and received the 1996 Northwest Writers Berger Award for Poetry.  His work has appeared in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.  He is presently entertaining the gift of life below the poverty line in Portland with his cat Eliza Doolittle, tutoring beginners in shoplifting etiquette, and evading respectability as a freelance loiterer and writer.