By Sara T. Baker

Fifty years ago, a tramp came to our door.
I didn’t see him, just heard the rumor
ascend the stairs with my clamoring brothers;
by the time the three of us thundered down
again, there were only wet footprints
leading from door to kitchen and back.
My mother had fed him, a woman alone
with six children in an alien land, wisteria
dripping from the porch roof, a green April rain
drenching everything. It is the grape-like must
of blooming wisteria, its decadence, and the dark
empty house, and those glistening tracks
that I remember, and the woman with her fierce,
generous heart, so that when my doorbell rings
today and a large man looms on my porch
with his empty belly and full story,
I do not hesitate.

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Sara T. Baker’s work has appeared in Poetry East, The Maine Review, Crab Orchard Review, Crab Creek Review, the 2011 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, The Healing Muse, Ars Medica, Stone, River, Sky: An Anthology of Georgia Poems, and elsewhere. Her stories have been shortlisted for the Bridport and Fish prizes. Her novel, The Timekeeper’s Son, was published in 2016. Born in Ohio, she lives in Athens, Georgia. Follow her at http://saratbaker.com.