Back When
    —for Irene Jewett, 1921 – 2022

on summer nights
after working the dinner shift
she’d go to the lake with her girlfriends

to skinny dip
linger
and smoke cigarettes

the boys always came later
she said
their headlights beaming

that was when
there was a stocking mill
and hame shop
in town

a large ice house
beside the lake

the ice cakes
shipped all year
clear down
to Boston