Summer Album

a pink pop art bathing suit size four hangs on a knob from the kitchen cabinet. its solid little pink terry cover-up hangs on the adjoining cabinet.

in the square of the coolly elegant powder room’s shapes of tempered green glass and peach tile, a small squat wooden four legged stool Goldilocks would have sat on jars the perfectly proportioned circles, ovals, rectangles, and cubes

baby daria the dolly sits in her vivid stroller parked in the dining room on the travertine floor

oddly shaped plastic tubing and pieces in the dishwasher nestle next to the good floral china, parts from a breast pump

squat neon lidded jars of play dough sit next to graceful glass pitchers

purple bottles of grape scented bubbles under the tan porch swing

slim packages of plastic doll clothes between the business envelopes, cards, and stamps in the correspondence drawer

a graduate school paper on social policy graded with a big A plus sits next to a worn navy diaper bag on the granite counter

a quickly disappearing stash of stickers, activity books, and novelties in the dressing room

jubilant sounds of “you are my sun tan lotion, my only sun tan lotion” emerge from the bathroom as a little girl sits

the summer of my granddaughters