Handwork

By TINA CANE

Lucid dreaming is not a job     but a steady occupation

 

I do not have a big dream     they are only little dreams 

                               and right now I cannot think of one

 

My father read the paper      while my mother scrubbed the floor

I pay a woman $100 a week to help me keep my house clean

 

I forget to rinse the rice     because I am rushing

I wipe the counter     and wipe the counter again

 

My son makes a mountain of suds in his hair

I rinse behind his ears

 

Women balance large bundles of sticks on their heads

 

I forget to rinse the rice    because I am rushing

I wipe the counter     and wipe the counter again

 

For ten years I fed my children from my body

Kissed their fists to custom-make them milk     to fight the germs

I did this without realizing     I did it all the same

 

I wipe the counter     and wipe the counter again

If I had to live under a bridge     my children would go with me

 

When my daughter asks me to brush her hair 

I use fragrant oil     so that in a perfumed dream

she will remember me    with steady hands

 

hands that wipe the counter     that sometimes rinse the rice

 

Tina Cane serves as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island and is the founder and director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI. Her poems and translations have appeared in numerous publications, including The Literary Review, Two Serious Ladies, Tupelo Quarterly, jubilat, and The Common. She also co-produces the podcast Poetry Dose. Cane is the author of The Fifth Thought; Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante, poems with art by Esther Solondz; Once More with Feeling; and Body of Work, forthcoming in 2019 from Veliz Books.

[Purchase Issue 16 here.]

Handwork

Related Posts

October 2024 Poetry Feature: New Poems By Our Contributors

NATHANIEL PERRY
Words can contain their opposite, / pleasure at once a freedom and a ploy— / a garden something bound and original / where anything, but certain things, should thrive; / the difference between loving-kindness and loving / like the vowel shift from olive to alive.

Image of laundry hanging on a line.

Real Estate for the Blended Family (or What I Learned from Zillow)

ELIZABETH HAZEN
Sometimes I dream of gardens— // that same dirt they kick from their cleats could feed us, / grow something to sustain us. But it’s winter. // The ground is cold, and I dare not leave this room; / I want to want to fix this—to love them // after all—but in here I am safe.

Dolors Miquel and Mary Ann Newman

Dolors Miquel: Poems

DOLORS MIQUEL
In the ravine the river roars / the rocks seem made of glass, / the snow swaddles it all, / icy hands on the reins. / In the ravine time demands / in a deep invisible voice / just one human life / to turn into flesh and be free. / Just one human life. // On the cliffs of my soul