Summer Brother

(a snapshot)

The sky will forever be 

that burst of blue,

waves steady along 

the boat’s course

in the Antilles,

brother at the helm,

smiling and tan

with curly hair

that will never gray,

a flat belly

that will never bulge,

his large heart 

that will never fail.

This is the joy

of a photograph caught

sailing toward a cove

in Sint Maarten, summer

caught in a freeze-frame.

The phone does come

with news he is gone.

He does not enter the dark.

The sky will never lose its light, 

sand remain forever white

before the clapboard

beach house timeshare.

His eyes, blue as the water

and warm breath of sky,

his hair tousled 

by a gusty wind 

sailing, always June, 

always morning 

opening up with sun, 

no gray routine of days.

He is never alone. 

He does not die.

His body continues 

living the day

loving what it does.

The Washerwoman

(after Peder Mork Monsted’s Laundry Day 1905)

The washerwoman’s back aches hauling 

water to tubs to soak, wash, rinse. She scrubs 

skirts and shirts on the washboard, 

grates a block of soap for suds tinged blue 

to bleach out the yellow, her hands scalded red 

and blistered by steam.

The washerwoman stares from the washtub 

through the window, and before afternoon fades, 

at children playing at stick ball and skip rope

as her puckered fingers clip wet wash to the line,

some for the box mangle to iron smooth 

only to be dirtied on tennis or croquet courts 

while the washerwoman fills tub after tub

for the next batch, and the next, and the next, 

rubbing her hands weathered by work.