While Ironing,

 

While Ironing,

 

a line of reckoning.

Her precision in linen

in dishcloth lap napkin

summer cotton

 

shirt cuffs & the yoke

across the shoulder

was a navigator’s

satisfaction, a Jesus-like

 

geometry, grit from licked

thumb, akin to the pinch

of water’s flung

benediction she’d knotted

 

before she was done

bringing it all in almost dry

from the line, making it

yield to her and her hot

 

iron.  It was nearly

a sacrilege to let fly

this napkin white as peace

doves to wipe my vinegar & oil

 

dripping lips, but oh!

to press it there was

a clemency I didn’t know

I needed until right then

 

and my when cut lips felt

her linen balm and they stilled,

then they parted then barely spoke,

and only: oh! oh!    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes, December

 

folded

Notes, December

 

now the shadows are

lengthening over the snow.

November closes.

 

1:

 

clung like rot, a stump

whose roots underground

may yet

 

pulse ~

who would know though

owing to the snow-

 

hold & so early

in the season,

or late, depending on

 

your point

of view.  see, we’ve

three weeks remaining

 

of autumn. there’s 

so much I’d needed

to tend to before it all

 

came to this

slow focused letting go:

the bronzing

 

of ice beneath a night

of light white dust

the sunrise sites

 

while rising behind

the overcast sky,

in the low, no visible

 

wind.  see: the same

curled maple leaf

from a week ago is still

 

by the buddha's toe, its body

caught in the thin scrim,

half above the solid stone