Martha Ellen Wham
Illinois – Wyoming
1861-1942
Your head rests on the dining room table
moved to the parlor for viewing by
cousins to-the-third twice-removed.
I don’t remember you in life, only the
silhouette I stood on my toes to see,
white as the chalk bluffs close by your
farmhouse, where wind carved deep furrows,
deep from water hauled three miles in barrels,
deep from wheat crops and children lost.
A face, harsh as the Pequod’s prow,
battered by storms, hardened by the
search for haven you never found,
calm waters to cradle you as gently as
the feather bed in the attic that kept
me warm three nights in December, 1942.
– Jay Payne
