Homecoming Sunday

Milton Jordan

May 4, 2025

Many of us, once called younger folk

now some years and more miles removed,

returned most Mays for worship at ten 

and that annual Dinner-on-the-Grounds

spread across those old concrete tables.

Sallie Anne brought her mother’s famous peach pies;

Marilyn showed up with sweet potatoes,

and Kenny and his brother brought brisket

they’d spent Saturday smoking on the pit

Uncle Clarence built out beyond the tables.

We counted on Irene’s Blackeyes with sausage,

onions and some spice she kept secret,

cornbread in the pans the twins, Janice and John, 

salvaged when they sold their grandparents’ place

and butter their brother James Earl still churned.

Aunt Marge, now living in the Senior Center 

in town, somehow still brought her cheesy grits,

but her nieces, Katherine and Connie

had little success matching her recipe

and Paul’s pan-fried version was always better.

A year or two back we began to notice

absent friends, Steven and his special sauce,

Ray who’d always cranked the ice cream freezers,

Frank since Pattie Dee was gone, but the Baker boys

still led singing before we ate leftovers. 

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.