Wash day.

Soiled thoughts heap up
like rags in a basket.
Time to do a wash.
The weather's right,
bright and windy.
A quick-dry day.

First, soap. Not store-bought.
But stone-hard pigfat
and lye mixed with
oatmeal in a pail.
Then hacked with a knife
into Lux-like flakes.

Then the washer, gas powered.
Hard to start in the
kitchen, but too heavy
to lug outside.
"Fumes!" (There's
a word for you!)

The blue-enameled kitchen
stove burns corncobs
gnawed clean by pigs.
After the pigs have done
their damnedest,
the cobs burn hot.

Water. Well-water
is real cold.
No stove, pigs or not,
is hot enough to bring
well-water to blood heat.
You need a heart.

In the root cellar
beneath the kitchen
potatoes sprout
dead white--
because there's
no light.

Outside, on wash day, are
two galvanized steel tubs
for rinsing in the lovely air.
Rinse Tub One: rain-water, sheer joy.
Rinse Tub Two: the bluing,
too cold to be true.

Then, everything dries on the line
in the winds of July.
What dries first?
Handkerchiefs and lady's underwear.
What dries last?
The farmer's overalls

heavy with desire.
On the bib,
where the heart beats,
his everlasting snuff tin
has inscribed an unwashable
perfect circle forever.

At noon, the naked truth descends
offering her stunning breasts.
Also here comes the prophet
Amos, with something in hand.
In fact, a basket of summer fruit.
Chapt. 6, vss. 1, 2. (Check it out.)

July, 1947. Gibbon, Minnesota

(for Daria Donnelly)