ISSUE: Summer 1981
I don’t know what you think you’re doing,
sweeping the ground. You
do it so easily, backhanded, forehanded.
You hardly bend. Really, you sway.
What can it mean
when a thing is so easy?
sweeping the ground. You
do it so easily, backhanded, forehanded.
You hardly bend. Really, you sway.
What can it mean
when a thing is so easy?
I threw dirt on my father’s floor.
Not dirt, but a chopped green
dirt which picked up dirt.
I pushed the pushbroom.
I oiled the wooden floor of the store.
He bent over and lifted the coal
into the coal stove. With the back of the shovel
he came down on the rat just topping the bin
and into the fire.
What do you think? —Did he sway?
Did he kiss a rock for luck?
Did he soak up water
and climb into light and turn and turn?
Did he weep and weep in the yard?
Yes, I think he did. Yes,
now I think he did.
So, Willow, you come sweep my floor.
I have no store.
I have a yard. A big yard.
I have a song to weep,
I have a cry.
You who rose up from the dirt,
because I put you there
and like to walk my head in under
your earliest feathery branches—
what can it mean
when a thing is so easy?
It means you are a boy.
