Call Your Daughter Home

by Deb Spera

sing to them the song my mama used to sing to me: “Go tell Aunt Rhody, go tell Aunt Rhody, go tell Aunt Rhody the old gray goose is dead.” Mary’s a little bit. Don’t weigh more than a four-year-old. She lays her head on my shoulder and sleeps while I sing, “The one she’s been saving, the one she’s been saving, the one she’s been saving to make a feather bed.” Alma holds on to my dress while we walk along through tall weeds. “The goslings are mourning, the goslings are mourning, the goslings are mourning because their mother’s dead.”