When I was seven, someone gave me
a bag of marbles. For Christmas.
In North Dakota.
With snowdrifts chinning the windowsills,
and an Arctic clipper rattling the panes, my father
knelt down, traced a circle in the carpet nap,
scattered the marbles. brought out a real Aggie
from a drawer in his smoker’s chest.
When summer finally popped, I was no longer
a rube. Not quite Norman Rockwell’s red-haired
ring-queen, but good enough to hold my own.
Standing in the dollar store today, I heft a mesh sack
of ducks in my palm, the click and crack of those days
clippering back upon me.
Me. Seven. Knees in the dirt, thumb cocked,
eyeing the angle, learning what it meant to
knuckle down and win.
Yvette Viets Flaten (Colfax) writes award-winning poetry and fiction. Her poetry has recently appeared in Silver Birch Press, Moss Piglet, Creative Wisconsin, and Lakefly Contest Anthology. Yvette is a Life Member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. She enjoys the outdoors, cooking, and travel, but mostly, she savors the quiet, early morning hours, as the day begins.