Any Honest Housewife

fragrant green, the color of
grass out in the damp morning as
the dawn chorus trails off, sun
still unborn

next the hedges, the green
shoots who rise up must
be cropped back to regulation
length

the roar of their machines, pushed
by the red-shirted men seep in
at her windows, splitting her
splintered sleep yet again, riven,

rousing her to wakefulness and
twice-boiled coffee diluted with
cream and cracked ice, the blear of eyes
looking at these few acres, the

flowering bushes, sad topiaries leaning,
lopsided,
as she rattles her keys and counts the
store of sugar, the preserved fruits

and wraps, wraps her arms
about the quilt she folds--
the sheets a different matter--
these billow out like sails, shaken

out before they are neatly squared--
any honest housewife, he
said, would sort them out--
perhaps.

the circulars are collected, the
list of provisions made on the
backs of old page proofs--such
are her economies

as the red men, ant-like, move
and mow again, the green green
scent a welcome one, to sleep
oh to sleep, in the brittle-gold hay

sunbleached, clean