First Person | Features, Jokes and More | A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media

Thirst
By Anna Baldwin
April 10, 2008

When I was child in the plains of North Dakota
I spent weird summer nights with sunsets at midnight
Hidden in shadowy raspberry bushes.
Fumbling slow fingers pulling downy ripe fruit
From the stem into my stained mouth.
Backyard dandelions and grass
Watched over by seven solitary birch trees
Meant to protect us from the desiccant wind

My mother grew up where the winters are rainy.
The summer air is heavy and yellow like miso soup.
Raw garbage tumbles into the streets and
Its smell follows millions of dark-haired people
Through the busy neon-blinking city that
Barely notices the persimmon sun
Roll into the ocean.

Six years of Northern wind
Drew the native moisture from my mother's hands.
Six years of holy Psalms and Sunday potlucks
Thinned her lips and hollowed her cheeks—except
Those days when she'd bring home a mango
And tell my sister and I how big and juicy
They used to be.

Its flesh split among us three
We were all plump and happy.

About the author:
I grew up in the Midwest, and, now that I am east of the Mississippi, find myself missing it more and more...