Though we were only two at the table,
certainly her mother joined us, as she always does,
along with another who mothered me, too,

as a 20-something, new-to-town journalist
who didn’t know she needed mothering.
That little town gave me two maternal voices

I didn’t know I needed, and we hoisted our
delicate china cups to them in the lovely tea room
down the street from that used-to-be

office where I and others I came to adore
worked. How much this town gave me,
I think now when I make occasional forays

there. How much gratitude spills from me
45 years after I first drove in on the same road
I did today, thinking of those now-gone ones,

the ones who mothered me, others who loved me
for no good reason, who taught me what it is
to be a grownup in the world, doing work

we loved, with people who became family,
who live with me still—those here and gone—
lucky, lucky me.

•••

(for Eileen and Ruth Rita and Julie
along with my old Vacaville Reporter family)