visitation rights: the 1950s

Sister Lou Ella Hickman

June 30, 2024

once a year

my sister and i rode the train   

with our grandmother

some six hundred miles across texas    

to visit our father for a month during the summer

once we stopped in san antonio

for an overnight in a hotel . . . 

once we rode the sleeper

i remember an upper bunk and thick curtains 

once we ate in the dining car . . .

starched white linen table cloth

a black porter in his starched white jacket

took our order

later the conductor

would ask for our tickets

click  click  click

we rode home . . .

after the wheels stopped 

there are still no memories of my father

Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writings have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Press 53 published her first book of poetry in 2015 entitled she: robed and wordless. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020.