I Remember Good Days | Ellen June Wright
I remember days when my West Indian mother
would drive us up to the cliffs and down the winding road
that led to the picnic grounds at the edge of the Hudson River
lapping like a living thing at the thick, stone retaining wall.
On a Sabbath afternoon, we might watch men filling buckets
with slick, gray fish from the even grayer river
as we ate rice and peas, stewed chicken, and summer melon
spitting out the smooth, black seeds.
The chatter of children and their joyous laughter
still echoes like waves in a conch shell to my ear.
Ellen June Wright was born in Bedford, England but currently lives in New Jersey. Her poems have appeared in the Naugatuck River Review, New York Quarterly, Plume, Atlanta Review, Solstice, Tar River Poetry, Paterson Literary Review, Gordon Square Review, The South Carolina Review, Obsidian, Caribbean Writer and Tulsa Review. She is a Cave Canem and Hurston/Wright alumna. She received six Pushcart Prize nominations between 2021 and 2022. When she is not writing, she enjoys crocheting, swimming and watching British crime dramas. You may follow her on https://twitter.com/EllenJuneWrites and https://www.instagram.com/ellenjunewrites/