Ironing

My aunts’ clothing they pegged on wash lines

along with dish towels & terry towels that dried

stiff & misshapen. I knew which blouse went

with which aunt, wrinkles raying from buttons

& buttonholes, nightgowns shaping breezes.

Ironing a study of the architecture of clothing —

seams, plackets, pleats, traveler’s creases

down the center line of long pants, secret

tucks inside the hems of flared skirts, machine

& hand stitching, stiffeners in collars & cuffs.

In every house a basket (or three baskets)

full of clean laundry waiting to be ironed, simple

things like pillow cases & handkerchiefs.

My brothers’ shorts were easy except for

the waistbands. Pockets were entertaining.

Penny a flat, nickel a shirt, dime for a dress —

all the dresses were mine. Smocking you iron

lightly, pleats hard. Certain items — my father’s

shirts, her bras — my mother ironed, along with
her starched & intricately folded nurse’s cap.

Rome

The Vatican: Sala delle Muse

by Thomas Hardy

I sat in the Muses’ Hall at the mid of the day,

And it seemed to grow still, and the people to pass away,

And the chiselled shapes to combine in a haze of sun,

Till beside a Carrera column there gleamed forth One.

She looked not this not that of those beings divine,

But each and the whole — an essence of all the Nine;

With tentative foot she neared to my halting-place,

A pensive smile on her sweet, small, marvellous face.

‘Regarded so long, we render thee sad?’ said she.

‘Not you,’ sighed I, ‘but my own inconstancy!

I worship each and each; in the morning one,

And then, alas! another at sink of sun.

‘To-day my soul clasps Form; but where is my troth

Of yesternight with Tune: can one cleave to both?’

— ‘Be not perturbed,’ said she. ‘Though apart in fame,

As I and my sisters are one, those, too, are the same.’

— ‘But my love goes further — to Story, and Dance, and Hymn,

The lover of all in a sun-sweep is fool to whim —

Is swayed like a river-weed as the ripples run!’

— ‘Nay, wooer, thou sway’st not. These are but phases of one;

And that one is I; and I am projected from thee,

One that out of thy brain and heart thou causest to be —

Extern to thee nothing. Grieve not, nor thyself becall,

Woo where thou wilt; and rejoice, thou canst love at all!’