ROUGH DAY POEM

1 Texture

This is about aching sacroiliac joints,
a house rough
with dirty laundry, sheets gritty with sand
which transmutes to gravel
when I nestle down, irritably,
dream an old woman
who clings to an enormous white refrigerator.
(She dies,
although I try to save her
with tough wet splays of lily pads.)

A few huckleberry leaves adhere red
to thread-fine stems,
jaunty.
I cling to that exterior reassurance,
eyes bare-spiked with trauma of branches,
brown, altogether vertical dead everywhere.
I begin to appreciate the calm charm
of sterility,
dark bandages of tarmac
over riotous earth,
golf courses poisoned into green submission

2 Snakeroot

I decide to submit
to cultural standards of beauty,
go on a diet.
I find I can't afford the requisite bushels
of fresh produce.
My cat falls in love with the woodstove,
deserts me for cuddles with heated iron

I pacify laundry; nothing else
will behave.
Sheets, socks, become my excuse
for living today,
puff into innocence
sweetness of clean fabric, soap.
During the salvage operation,
afternoon darkens to a bubble
almost popped

Outside, cedar roots arch malevolent
continuous flex of spine.
Snake. Immense, hungry
for chocolate brownies.
My diet flies out the window.
Again.
I toss another brownie to the reptile:
here, prehistory,
a day, used but clean

BY ZOË LANDALE