Doing Dishes on the Farm

“I sketch, weave the staccato, the soft and insidious silk of wings of cocoons of wild blackberries.” — Lauren Hynde


His nose is the first thing to get wherever
he goes, how funny! Who was it said that?
Oh yes, Mrs. Drummond, has a talent
for saying things in sayings. I’d hardly figure
she ever gets back of anyone else’s beak.

There, out there in the field, there’s the hat
coming off, even from here at the glass I can nearly
see the little crown of beads, and not just the khaki
sleeve, but what seems to fetch it here and back,
his hand, swiping it off.

I’ll rinse in cold. How can I miss him already!
Just here, he was, and silent at that. It’s our field,
though hot and full of dust, it’s just as much a grace
for me. “I want to try and grow some things,” he said,
and if nothing grows, still – it grows and grows.

I feel ashamed. Our boy’s gone to the city, about
to marry, we hardly ever ... But it’s the one I see now
I miss more, somehow... Oh! (I like the way cups clink
with spoons and such.) He sat, figuring something out,
I watched him sharp his pencil over the paper

bag I set beside him. Mrs. Jarvis may as well keep
her hard-cornered thoughts in her own mind;
what he says heaven may be, that’ll do me fine.
Harps and angels – he laughed at that, and I
laughed with him. Of course, he gets short, too ...

Now the black smoke goes up, he’s on again.
No, I couldn’t deny that, and still be me.
Hurts like a knife ... worse, maybe,
when I say nothing back, and I try not to.
It’s the little crown of beads of sweat,

that’s the real reason he got down. Just like the
sink gets splattered with them, but not white, off-gold.
Likes to stand with his feet right on the soil,
with any excuse, like weeds hung on the harrow.
Stand and look out, get a drink. Well, it is nice.

Why am I counting forks? There was the time
our old dog got sick past helping. I called her Sorta,
he’d said, “I think this one’s sorta the best lookin’,”
and we gave the rest away. Queer, how names come.
And having to do it tore at us both, him more ...

it was funny about that, too. Oh, I could count ...
but it’s like water, no, I can’t. Has that clock stopped?
Maybe he’s thinking about me. I wonder what
ways his eyes go, his hands always somewhere in that
thing. Big green machine, he looks so much larger.

Well, that should do it! Some few times, when I’ve
been away, come back, and he’s done these dishes like this,
I don’t know what, something about his fashion,
it makes me either want to laugh or cry.
Now, I think I’ll read a while, and rest.

It’s taken us good time to get this easy.
Look! There’s the dust, way down there at the far fence.
Turning. That dust is my husband. I’d have God
take him first, if I could order, to spare him
what I ... well, I don’t know what. Somewhere there’s

an article on blackberries I want to study.