REALITY?: Recall

Lilies at the grocery store stop me short, pull me from the produce aisle and suddenly there is the sound of children’s voices, thin and high in song.  The lyrics drift through phonetically, the same as how they once were learned, without the understanding of the words but just in time for Polish celebrations at St. Michael’s school and church.  White dresses, always white and frilly for giggling little girls who sway unblushingly as they sing.  And for the boys, red, white and blue in bowties, shirts and Sunday pants all a-jigger with the itchiness of starch and baseball on the schoolyard where they really feel they ought to be.  A hum of bees or maybe the fluorescent lighting brings me to the flowers, lilies, and back from green grasses to linoleum and supermarket apples, peaches, grapes.