Some Afternoons When Nobody Was Fighting

My mother took out
walnuts and chocolate
chips. My sister and
I plunged our fingers
in flour and butter
smoother than clay.
Pale dough oozing
between our fingers
while the house filled
with blond bars rising.
Mother in her pink dress
with black ballerinas
circling its bottom
turned on the Victrola,
tucked her dress up into
pink nylon bloomer pants,
kicked her legs up in the
air and my sister and I
pranced through the living
room, a bracelet around
her. She was our Pied
Piper and we were
the children of Hamelin,
circling her as close as the
dancers on her hem. Lyn Lifshin