Box-Stair
Mary Jane White
197
The sun even before dawn
Tactile in the window-wells
Of the basement laundry
& seeing how by watching
I relax
My body bends to sun
I myself know I am bending
& light-shafts run up the bleeding heart
Solidifying as if its stems were glass
198
& hardly mist as the sun rises
199
Slow-warming heat
Indifferent
Glimpse of bluebells swaying at eye-level
200
I adore you I think
Where the window stands open
Odor of darkness
Where these spring up near the concrete
Odor of rain
Of the newly-planted lily bed
Filling slowly light-catcher
Settling of large grackles
201
So when am I coming
Creaks the box-stair
& I am careless to know what is coming
Rumbling & when is not truly alive then
& when is it the same
Not truly
202
Let the basket drop
Push in the sheets
Socks shirts blouses dry now
& ready to be dampened chilled & ironed
With the tag-ends flapping over
203
All this giving which is not my giving
204
Dusty patches & how we come from them
Dust released from earth
Into air
Seals of the stone stair where water stood
Where earth was washed away runs off
Dries cracks open curves up into shallow plates
The dull unglazed clay surface all cupped
As hand-cups
Bird-baths set out to catch a next rain
Shallow & shallow
Lip to lip
With the dust nearly always rust-red
205
When the machine groans
At putting its load & drum of water in motion
Falters
206
I might think what I like
I might turn it on
Then off again
Unwilling
207
& why is this draining
A little beneath my feet
Only a little then
From wherever
Not apparently so important
& how is this thin sudsy sheet spread
Over the floor
As my feet remain rooted
& I am watching
Wondering idly what a plumber might recommend
A reliable one
& considering the cost
Of addressing what is after all only a small inconvenience
208
& the overhead mystery of a hundred
Years’ of wiring & rewiring & welded & stubbed out pipe
& in one corner the spotted round drain-cover
Hiding what
209
A long while perhaps since
The mud splashed up on the hems of clean sheets
That quickly
& all to do over again
A woman who had been so careful at pinning them out
Using her mouth & both hands
Hitching first this way then that
Until the greater part
Hung reasonably flat
210
& sharply into my head an odor of
Washing powder
Its acrid chalkiness able
To rise from such a small puddle
211
Take a step back as it spreads thinly everywhere
Then regrouping toward a lower corner
212
Bestir yourself I say I narrate
213
Whose idling was
Everything
Yes this is the point
Yes it is a loan
214
Even from a poor woman
& as drought receiving rain
& a solid wall where there is dust in the air
215
& sugar & while night flees
Before the tasks of harvesting & preserving
216
As the man of the house slept companionably
In his chair
Lulled by listening
217
Dust
Then the slow soaking rain
The heavy mist of another morning
& the racket of birdsong
& the wet feet of the clothes-rack in oily water
Which I a woman
Pick up re-set
& then ducking my head
Mount the box-stair
The back-stair
Look out
Into bronzed vine where song explodes
& the cool breeze passes
& the boy cycles by
With his thin plastic bags of flyers
Pedaling hard
Side to side
218
& know this is it
We are in for another round
Another check below
A quick climb
219
Feet on the wooden stair
Setting all our laundry upon the landing
220
Carrying the new-packed clean-gleaming jars
Carefully down
With the dust settling
Yes & notice it again
The sun
Mary Jane White is a poet and translator who practiced law at her home, the O. J. Hager House, in Waukon, Iowa, and is now retired to Amen Lake, Deer River, Minnesota. Over the years, her work has appeared in various anthologies, journals and literary magazines including New Directions 46: An International Anthology of Poetry and Prose, ed. James Laughlin, The Hudson Review, Poets Translate Poets (Syracuse, 2013), ed. Paula Dietz, The American Poetry Review, AGNI, Nimrod and The Black Warrior Review. She has attended numerous writing conferences over the years, most recently in 2016, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Sicily with poet C. Dale Young.
