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At the Sink, Thinking of My Mother
The house is empty, worn and cool. You’ve gone
to work; dad’s working too. You’ve made me lists
of things to do, to tidy up, to fix,
dispose of, or the like. Sometimes I do
resent it, being more these hands than heart,
at least to think that’s what you think of me
or what I total out to be. Truth is,
it’s easier begrudging these small tasks
and you, for your assigning — keeps my mind
off other things, like how the house I clean,
I clean to practice how a house — this shell
that’s partly my inheritance — is kept,
or how, with every mug I sponge clear of
the lipstick evidence of sips, what I’ve
achieved is crossing off another day
of days that tell no soul how far they stretch,
and know that one’s been set when water will
do more than wakes and graves to bury you.
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V. Freeport
from “Scenes from a Westbound Train”
I thought he was her father, but
the way she pulled his hand,
heavy, limp and awkward, like a
dead koi from the black pond
of his lap; the way he couldn’t
look at her until he’d unhinged
the clasp of her watch and turned
the ticking face into her wrist;
the way they knit their brows,
concentrating on the other’s knees
in lieu of playing witness to their
teenage neighbors’ frisky schemes,
told me they were something sadder.
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qarrtsiluni 