Growing Up in the Fifties

Growing up in the fifties meant
biking the neighborhood to find
a friend to come out and play,
walking the long hot hill up to
the corner candy store where we
could spend our nickels, gathering
girlfriends on my screened porch
any sticky summer’s day for a doll
tea party, coloring and cutting out
paper doll clothes (with tabs) at our
kitchen table on blustery Saturdays.

Pulling on coat, boots and mittens
to make snow forts with the boys
or snow angels with girls, organizing
teams of neighbor kids to make money
for our own circus prizes or costumes,
building a clubhouse - hotly debating
the club rules - under spindly sumac
sprouting by the alley, but stopping
everything to wave at passing trains,
hoping for a toss of gum or candy
from the engineer on a steam engine
as it rumbled loudly behind our street.

first published in Illinois State Poetry Society