1 She Who Scrubs on Hands and Knees the Floors
�
on a usual day
�sets her canvas sack between her legs
�and waits.
�But today her three-year-old
�tucks in the handle-straps,
�pats a flat seat
�and watches the long-tail yellow dog
�wind its kinked chain around the bus stop pole,
�chew fur
�off its spindly thigh.
�The green
�eye at the crosswalk blinks orange red
�orange orange red. Long brick
�walls sidle the street,
�tall oaks linger over locked
�see-through iron gates.
�Green. Orange.
�Red. Over the hill the #12,
�its wide glass cheeks
�wet with sweat.
�
2 After the Picnic
�
Parentheses around the last
�sigh of day—
�a voiceless pause
�a pause
�that spent its voice.
�The tired dog who trained its owner to throw for fetch
�curls into the back seat,
�rolled-up tablecloths wrap the bowls
�from rattling.
�The old engine mutters:
�Monday is 6 a.m., alarm, swipe of toothpaste,
�sip of juice, unbuttered toast.
�Behind, the creek
�on a bed of flat pebbles sleeps, and ants
�haul mighty crumbs.
�
3 Purple
�
His Aunt Bessie’s living room
�was heavy drapes
�tall flock-paper walls
�tongue-dry
�velvet cushions on
�sable-brown mahogany chairs
�a wide arabesque-
�bordered rug and strudels
�still warm.
�Some late afternoons
�daylight, loyal and patient,
�waited
�outside the massive front door.
�But most days
�he glimpsed the backside of dusk
�turning the corner,
�its arms swinging a racewalk
�knuckles sore
�from the useless spate
�of knocking.
�
�
