OCCUPANTThe sad mailbox of my extreme youth, what did it ever deliver? The only...
A CRITICPick up your socks. Clean the house once in a while. Go to the dentist. ...
HISTORIANPiles and piles of books, boxes of documents, photographs, bones, shreds of clothes...
YOU WHO KNOWI was just enough bigger that I could wrestle you into the clean straw of the mow...
GRIFFY LAKEI spread my smooth water like a lap and caught the trees' faces where they fell...
FOOT-WASHING
. . . having loved his own which were in the world,
he loved them unto the end.
John 13:1
Tin bowls enameled white,
warm water, two towels.
The men wore big black suits
and sat in pairs. One would kneel
and lift the other's white feet
into the bowl. Thick fingers splashing
the water. After each washing
they stood up and kissed
each other's cheeks. The old ones
cried. The boys watched.
When the bowls were taken away
the men talked in the back
just like any other day.
I never did it. They stopped
the year I was baptized
and I always wondered
just why the old men did weep?