Initially, it is exciting and dreadfully rich
to tiptoe into a kitchen, you know
where they all keep their Sunday knives
the drawer of fast food forks, a distorted blue
sippy cup collapsed and weeping
warm milk like a Marian icon abandoned
by progress, stop and care enough
to dissect the tea towel draped
over the counter–Mystic, it’s the Key West
wadded up on a Wednesday morning
landscape that betrays the lateness
of their exit, the hieroglyphic Cheerios
and lukewarm scrambled bits
you suspect that in every house
with laundry there is a damp apron, the breast
pocket open, asking you to enter, to touch
your mother who slipped away, and in that way
you won’t leave
empty handed, or alone
This poem is a unique and different take on the Schiele painting, especially the way you led up to the lines that revealed the painting. I love the image of the ‘distorted blue sippy cup collapsed and weeping warm milk’ and the specificity of a ‘Wednesday morning landscape’. But how poignant are these lines:
ReplyDelete‘…there is a damp apron, the breast
pocket open, asking you to enter, to touch
your mother who slipped away…’
laundry on display, the great revealer... I'm pretty sure that is the lovely artpiece you chose to write about. Love it to pieces. Great words. Selma
ReplyDeleteThis is great, love how you revealed the poem with the laundry line...
ReplyDeleteNothing ever truly lost.
ReplyDelete