Ink Drawing, Brown & White
 
You stand before you fall
on the scrubbed white square
you call your kitchen.
Behind on the rent, of course.
Why you take in ironing
and keep this child
whose mother gallivants.
Starved yellow sun peeks
through bite-size windows
you curtained off white
by hanging rags along string
from a ball saved knot by knot.
White flour, white table,
white sheets you have piled
in a basket you call. . .bicker?
Other color cinnamon.
For snails!   Just take the scraps
of rolled-out dough got cut
off a rhubarb pie and dot butter
‘roun’.  Sugar comes next!
I’m a good sprinkler, you say.
Tomorrow, you believe
you will wash my hair.  Pail
under the rain spout almost full
last you looked.  Who needs
shampoo when you’ve got goo
from soap slivers in a Ball jar
on your sink?   People you work
for never heard Waste not, want
not?   Don’t forget to add
a little vinegar to the last rinse.
Shine on the darkest day.
 
I love that flour whitens
the apron beneath your face.
Round cracked glasses shine
on you.  We are not going to think
what can happen.  Not
when we have cinnamon
and butter from next door.
Sugar-sugar-sugar for the top.
We are going to have milk
with our snails on the porch
where it feels just right.
 
 
©) Phyllis Jean Green