Emptying the Dishwasher
Rinse water collects
in bottoms-up coffee mugs
reflecting puddles from my past.
Remember this one
from the strawberry-blond student
who couldn’t spell
but painted glory
on a morning mug,
or these matching mugs
from my nieces
(we reserved for weekend coffee
in bed with books and snippets
of secrets from the past).
I unload two water bottles
from the kayak trip
(when snowy egrets
performed a sky-dance –
remember that),
a lid-less mason jar
that held botanical samples
for your latest illustration project,
glass dessert plates
from my grandmother,
casserole dishes from a sister-in-law
(who shops on QVC for stoneware
in the pattern she picked out for me –
guess that’s how it goes
if you’re wedding-less),
your flatware,
my stemware,
Tupperware with permanent spaghetti sauce stains.
Finally, I unload the three
handcrafted ceramic bowls –
terracotta clay, glazed
with lake-blue swoops
like feathered tracers
in a cloudless sky –
(a peace offering from my first partner
whose affair propelled me
into a studio apartment
with little to call my own –
she donated three straight-backed chairs as well –
triumvirate trinity of memory).
Sandy is dead now.
The chairs, long gone,
but the bowls serve us
stone-ground oatmeal
every morning.
