BOOTS

One of your first visits
ought to be with Boots,
the secretary told me.
You’ll like her. She’s a real character.

So you’re the new pastor.
They told me you was kind of skinny.
Yes, everybody wonders that . . .
how I got my name.
My real name is Arbutus, but
my little sister couldn’t pronounce it
and called me Boots. It stuck.
I know you won’t ask, you’re too polite,
but I’m eighty-seven, still going strong,
eat a bowl of oatmeal every morning.
Never smoked. There were fifteen of us,
I was smack in the middle.
If I’d been Mama,
I woulda took a knife to bed with me.
She lived to be eighty herself though.
Daddy died at fifty-two
which proves something I guess.
I don’t go to church much any more.
Can’t see the point really.
But you stop around any time.

When the phone rang three days later,
it was her daughter.
Mom died last night, she said.
Guess she’ll be making it to church
sooner than she thought.