Winter/1962 Poem by Louise Marie DelSanto

On Sundays my sister and I
would walk two miles to church
our heads covered in kerchiefs
our young bodies shivering
a gust of Winter following our path.

I would complain, telling my sister
how I hated him
Him, who had given me my own room,
a radiator screaming hot at
seven a.m., and my windows delicate
with snowflakes from the night before.

The big house on the hill, they
called it,
at night I remember it all
the sounds of my brothers and sister
the smells of my mother's cooking
.
I wish I could go back, I wish
I could go back and thank him.