Miss Moore No More




           Mrs. Charles Willson Peale, 1816, by Charles
           Willson Peale (1741-1827); Philadelphia

Miss Hannah Moore agreed to be my wife
within a year of my second bride’s demise.
Although she’d been a spinster all her life,
Hannah had the knack to empathize
with children, yet morally upraise
the mites. She helped me teach the young ones still
at home; the older eight had gone their ways.
(With my nightly aching to fulfill,
my flock of Peales had grown to sixteen offspring.)
Though Hannah said she’d never brook relations,
I hoped someday there’d come a softening
and I agreed to her negotiations.
In time, she let me lie in bed with her;
we’d spoon. I did my darndest not to stir.

Barbara Lydecker Crane


If you have any thoughts on this poem, Barbara Lydecker Crane would be pleased to hear them.