Gather the River’s Children

a house party —
in Simpkinsville

character tales:
just the plushest

a golden wedding:
half-hour sketches

Carlotta’s intended:
Babette’s short story

haunted photographs —
fair women’s exchange

stilted Christmases’ guests —
Aunt Amity’s silver wedding

Holly and Pizen — afterglows
snow-cap sisters — their farce

Moriah’s mourning, and Jezziah
Napoleon Jackson, a gentlemen

Salina Sue: safer second wooing
hot cocoons: a rest-cure comedy

kind observer, genial philosopher
Solomon Crow lined every pocket

storytellers begin startling new tales
still carrying along a few old listeners

desultory talks with the family doctor
plantation songs — other prescriptions

the long unlived life of little Mary Ellen
too many gifts went astray — a-beggin’

whence and whithers: cases in diplomacy
the river’s children: dark Mississippi idylls

. . . . .

Poet: Susan Powers Bourne
Source: Archive.org search: Ruth McEnery Stuart
Process: Pick and mix cento of Stuart’s book titles