2 December 2003 | Vol. 3, No. 4

What I'm Here For

by THERESA BOYAR

Today, it's the rise

and billow of sheets

on the clothesline, the necessary

rectangles snapped, bleached

linen fixed with a pin.

It's jam on every kitchen

washcloth and broom-resistant

crumbs that multiply across the floor.

It's the newspaper I pick up

thinking only to read the letters

to the editor, and set back down

two hours later, my fingers

dusty as if I've read the walls

of mines. It's dishes

that breed disease in a backed-up sink,

it's an empty mailbox, a phone

call that he'll be late from work,

a discussion with the neighbor

about how my weeds are infiltrating

her flowerbeds. I can't allow it

to continue. It's dinner that arrives

in a flat box, delivered by a woman

who looks over my shoulder

and sees the unmade beds

like a cankered tongue

in the mouth of this house.

It's the sending off

to the bathroom with toothbrushes,

the reading of a bedtime story and then

just one more, and the walk to the bedroom

to bunk beds that are still sheetless. It's traipsing

to the clothesline in the dark, damp

weeds beneath my feet, and the memory

of how this day started out

in sunlight, handling wet sheets,

the promise of empty space

shaking out before me

in large blank rectangles.