doing what you dislike
every day wondering about your work
perhaps able to do what you think you want
at my typewriter i think of you
writing as i touch you the days never come
when we understand each other
meeting only to be content
we avoid other problems
you talk of cuba and women's rights
i complain of traveling in america
of the coffee and pistol in the back seat
of the car listening with your back
we question what is between us
literature that hides my walls behind books
and prints
the talking of people with different values
the country where you live is brown and bare
quiet enough for you to live
but the family you care about you think i will
question and dislike
your parents will enter another life
i ask you to rise out of yours
as i have left mine somewhere
in Cambridge thinking of you
: : Sam Cornish, Sam's World (1978)
Showing posts with label sam cornish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sam cornish. Show all posts
9.15.2009
8.18.2009
In a Red Dress
in a red dress
a woman on her knees
washes a floor
a hundred years ago
she is shaping the life of her children
she thinks as a woman
does of freedom
a dark place in the woods
where the north enters the trees
she wonders if words mean history a woman
losing her children
if reading is a crime
she does not ask for pity
there is a damp rag on the floor
she wipes
in the dress she slept in the dress
she had her children in
she scrubs the floor
does not brush her teeth
she picks them with straw or sticks
she moves on her knees
and watches the ceiling in the water
reflected in the water
everything in her life
is hard like the floor she
touches
the water in her hands
the water is between her legs
her body like a sack of muscle
her hands are dark with water
she wonders about her children
how many children if she could count
past her fingers
about her body
the words she would find if she could read
she gathers water
like sounds in her head
she kneels
like a slave
in church
like a slave preparing to dance
in front of the pig house
she pretends
to be quiet
her mind is grinding
glass
pissing in the evening meal
:: Sam Cornish, Sam’s World (1978)
a woman on her knees
washes a floor
a hundred years ago
she is shaping the life of her children
she thinks as a woman
does of freedom
a dark place in the woods
where the north enters the trees
she wonders if words mean history a woman
losing her children
if reading is a crime
she does not ask for pity
there is a damp rag on the floor
she wipes
in the dress she slept in the dress
she had her children in
she scrubs the floor
does not brush her teeth
she picks them with straw or sticks
she moves on her knees
and watches the ceiling in the water
reflected in the water
everything in her life
is hard like the floor she
touches
the water in her hands
the water is between her legs
her body like a sack of muscle
her hands are dark with water
she wonders about her children
how many children if she could count
past her fingers
about her body
the words she would find if she could read
she gathers water
like sounds in her head
she kneels
like a slave
in church
like a slave preparing to dance
in front of the pig house
she pretends
to be quiet
her mind is grinding
glass
pissing in the evening meal
:: Sam Cornish, Sam’s World (1978)
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