Emma wore red cherry pendants,
earrings on dangle-thin stems.
They told her the baby brother
would appear when the poppies
filled their field with color.
George had, by then, come, and the poppies
were fading among Tuscan grasses.
Emma found juicy jewelry
to ornament the days.
We stuffed the yellow squash blossoms
with soft white cheese, fried them.
Each wave of fertility
we greeted with ceremony,
a keeping of the cycles,
one Emma modeled with élan,
she the haver of cake and eating it, too.
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