On the last day of the year,
sunshiny and chilly, I make
my way back to Amy’s deck

where Shelley and the gals have
been exercising their hearts out
Tuesday mornings while

I’ve been otherwise occupied.
Coming back into my world,
delighted to be part of the circle,

I begin to move to Shelley’s
old-time country music—
Patsy Montana yodeling,

I wanna be a cowboy’s sweetheart,
I wanna learn to rope and ride…
and then the tumbleweeds tumbling

with the Sons of the Pioneers—
both songs written in 1934,
and there I am thinking of her,

born three years earlier, my mother
who loved horses, riding the docile
mares stabled across the street,

delighted to sit on horseflesh
and amble down the path
to the lake.

She’d have wanted to be
the cowboy, I think, not
merely the sweetheart—

or maybe both, the woman
who brought up two girls
to believe they could do

anything they wanted.
And on this cusp of a new year,
we have, by golly.

We have.