Housekeeping

We birth a thousand

destined broken things:

 

chair legs detach from their seats under 

the weighted repetition of sitting cloth

 

itself threadbare from

the rubbing of muscle.

 

We glue together the

blue China fallen in grief.

 

The silver nails of the crib are

reserved for our rusty coffins.

 

We mend the holes

of our tattered souls.

 

We reattach old soap specks to new

and shape them into a bath ark.

 

The fallen pecans and apples are

hoarded for the sweetest pies to be.

 

The broken necks of pollards

make our most savory stock.

 

The new rug turned dirty is beaten

until dust flies like stars.

 

We shut the curtains in the

afternoon to cool the room.

 

Mothers iron, singing in their reverie,

folding neatly, stacking all on the chair.

 

They listen for the passing mail car

so they can mark the new catalogs

 

with the dreams of their families

cruising to a distant, distant  land.

 

Everything under our houses is just

the dust of every housecleaning before,

 

the joy of  parents knowing their children

will move out and be blessed

 

to reach their Jesus year and know

the sanctity of resurrected dust.