In the early 90s I worked at a wonderful used book shop in Rochester, NY, called Small World Books. It still exists, but in a different location in Rochester, still run by the same great book man, my friend, Rocco Pellegrino. (Let Rocco give you a youtube tour.) As always at used book shops, we would find interesting things in old books and once I found a post card with a simple message from Mildred to Mabel that seemed to me somehow melancholy. Also, read a certain way, a bit sinister, although I'm sure I was making that up. Fairly sure. Probably the melancholy, too. I adapted it, for a bit of rhythm and meaning, into this old poem (Sackets Harbor, by the way, is a village in far Upstate New York, on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario):
Killing the Haybuyer, 1916
Dear Mabel,
When are you coming
down?
When you come will
you bring your hoops?
I want to borrow
them for a week.
Am going to finish
that diary I started last summer.
Mother says tell you to bring down that white waistcoat
and she will put new sleeves on it.
Did you go to church
yesterday?
Fr. Baldwin is here
killing the beef.
Also a haybuyer.
Father went to
Sackets Saturday.
Taylor’s found a
ring.
Mildred
 |
| Western New York, winter, 2014. Pic: Rocco Pellegrino |
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