The city had such pretty clotheslines.
Women aired their intimate apparel
in the emery haze:
membranes of lingerie—
pearl, ruby, copper slips—
their somehow intestinal quivering in the wind.
And Freihofer’s spread the chaste, apron scent
of baking, a sensual net
over a few yards of North Troy.
The city had Niagara
Mohawk bearing down with power and light
and members of the Local
shifting on the line.
They worked on fabrics made from wood and acid,
synthetics that won’t vent.
They pieced the tropics into housecoats
when big prints were the rage.
Dacron gardens twisted on the line
over lots of Queen Anne’s lace.
Sackdresses dyed the sun
as sun passed through, making a brash stained glass
against the leading of the tenements,
the warehouse holding medical supplies.
I waited for my bus by that window of trusses
in Caucasian beige, trying to forget
the pathological inside.
I was thinking of being alive.
I was waiting to open
the amber envelopes of mail at home.
Just as food service workers, counter women,
maybe my Aunt Fran, waited to undo
their perms from the delicate insect meshes
required by The Board of Health.
Aunt Alice wasn’t on this route.
She made brushes and plastics at Tek Hughes—
milk crates of orange
industrial lace
the cartons could drip through.
Once we boarded, the girls from Behr-Manning
put their veins up
and sawed their nails to dust
on files from the plant.
All day, they made abrasives. Garnet paper.
Yes, and rags covered with crushed gems called
garnet cloth.
It was dusk—when aunts and mothers formed
their larval curls
and wrapped their heads in thick brown webs.
It was yesterday—twenty years after
my father’s death,
I found something he had kept.
A packet of lightning-
cut sanding discs, still sealed.
I guess he meant to open the finish,
strip the paint stalled on some grain
and groom the primal gold.
The discs are the rough size
of those cookies the franchises call Homestyle
and label Best Before.
The old cellophane was tough.
But I ripped until I touched
their harsh done crust.
1995, Sensual Math (W. W. Norton & Company)
Copyright ©:
Alice Fulton
A few random poems:
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 03 by Torquato Tasso
- God Of Roads by Yvor Winters
- Robert Burns: The Twa Dogs: A Tale
- Indian Summer by William Ellery Leonard
- Владимир Степанов – Как живете? Что жуете?
- A Night-Piece by William Wordsworth
- The Plantster’s Vision poem – John Betjeman poems
- On the Death of John M’Leod, Esq. by Robert Burns
- Витя, Витенка, Витюша
- let us go with no care by Raj Arumugam
- One Day You Will Miss Me.. by Rahul S
- Robert Burns: The Rights Of Woman: An Occasional Address. Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her benefit night, November 26, 1792.
- Day’s End by Tu Fu
- Thoughts. by Walt Whitman
- Sonnet 88: When thou shalt be disposed to set me light by William Shakespeare
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Как жаль, что много лет назад
- Как живёшь ветеран милиции
- Какая мама молодец
- Как хочу я в День влюбленных
- Как хорошо, что рядом верная подруга
- Как хорошо иметь подругу
- Как тяжело, когда идет война
- Как в поход я собираюсь
- Как воздух, математика нужна
- Как сегодня тихо в классе
- Как Снегурочка дела
- Как тамада я выступаю в роли теоретика
- Как привить ребенку любовь к чтению: советы и рекомендации – Poetry Monster
- Как просто было в юности
- Как прекрасны все цветы
- Ирина Гурина – Как пчёлы чуть не поссорились
- Ирина Гурина – Как появляются листочки
- Как прекрасно твое имя
- Как не бывает утро без рассвета
- Как небо сходится с водой
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
