Dismay is waiting behind the door,where across the floor, footprints like hieroglyphschronicle the history of past defeats.Dead clothes, the skin of our former selves,still tumble from broken cases, cratessplit their sides with the books, a three-legged chair,bewildered, leans in the corner where a viper’s nestof jerseys entwines a broken lamp –all the high spume and […]
my father is “having fun”
cleaning the floor
he uses the plugged-in sink as a bucket
wears rags on his feet
and shimmies to a cleaning beat
Our cries, she used to say
/ would scratch the moon’s windowpanes
/ and scrape the corners of tombstones which milked the moon
/
/ My mother…
All this last week I have been thinking
of my mother, thinking of her taking
up in her arms the creaking basket
of clothes, without pausing, up to the attic.
his mother pulls the linen
/ from the cord.
/ She flaps each sheet,
/ folds each vest.
/ Collars are starched,
/ skirts are dressed.
/ She is spit, she is…
A little nap rap
/ When I got home one evening
/ to my cosy living room
/ I found a squirrel at my table
/ and…
If only I had an octopus
/ I’d soon get my housework done.
/ I’d set him to work on the hoovering…
