It covered three quarters of the house and it was painted battleship grey. In my youth, we often ate dinner on the porch then watched the day dissolve sitting in lawn chairs and on the rails. It was a place of family passions, mint juleps and grand gestures. The last line of the poem kinda says it all, Mabel is the kind of woman that holds a family together. Yes she is a real person, but Mabel is not her real name.
Spring is the most difficult season.
Its like when you stop someone from committing suicide and they slap you. Consider the terrifying, eerie power of the engine that forces dead matter to rise, hold itself erect and dance. This poem has no right to be good poetry, since it was such good therapy, and the two usually do not share the same page. Writing the poem was embarrassing and painful, but it seemed to help. I still say dumb things at work, but they don't seem to take such a toll any more.