my sister playing piano through the open window
my father steering his Adirondack chair with a highball
I pushed the lawnmower through light in the grass
fresh-mown scent filled the air

then left it under the apricot tree
rocked in the hammock
watched bees wrestling clover blossoms
the job unfinished

my mother snapping wet sheets off the back porch
figured to wise me up
by singing a Scottish song about a skull

me auld hause bane, and two sardonic crows
about to pike out a knight’s bonny blue een 
who lay slain in a field—
the wind sall blaw fer evermair, fer evermair

she snatched clothespins from her teeth
hoisted our clothes above the neighborhood
scaring Heckle and Jeckle away
the pulley screeching like a jay