It is always two o’clock on a June afternoon
School is out
And I’m standing in the middle of Gay Street in the broad shade
Under a large full,
never pruned maple tree,
Gay Street near Everhart,
in front of a large lawn
where Kathy Corcoran
draws the hopscotch map
in chalk
on the macadam street.

I’m wearing the cotton sleeveless blouse my favorite – white with vertical stripes in rainbow colors.
I know that at home my mother, off from work for the summer,
energetic and serene, is making peach cobbler for supper,
and my father will be home at 6.
They are always 42 years old,my parents,
and that a box of Whitman’s floral mints
– my favorite candy –
sits on the dining room table.
No verb exists in its own moment

Anne Higgins teaches at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Eight books of her poetry have been published: At the Year’s Elbow, Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky, Pick It Up and Read, How the Hand Behaves, Digging for God, Vexed Questions, Reconnaissance, and Life List. Her poems have been featured frequently on The Writer’s Almanac.