Rejected by a Little Magazine, the Poet Repairs the Faucet
by Gerry McFarland
In the window of our cramped yellow kitchen
light fractures in the cherry branches.
The blossoms fell last month,
pink edits on the fresh green page.
Deep in the faucet the gasket is worn.
Water sputters in the silver throat,
and the whole thing bangs and quakes.
Light stepping in the leaves of the cherry
fixes me to the floor, wrench in one hand,
lead neck of the battered fixture
in the other. Damp dark stuff
sent up unfiltered into every kitchen
drips black, pools on the linoleum
a tiny black lake of corroded iron.
Once I ran a plumber’s snake
down under the kitchen sink, down
the larynx of the house, into the bowels
of the earth, until it gurgled, popped,
and spit back loose crap from the deep.
But this is a simple repair. Just a humble
little pink washer. There. One branch
in the window frame jerks like an elbow
deleting thoughts, ending sentences.
White fists of light cross the room,
fly back into the cherry tree,
apart from the plumbed world,
to mingle with leaves, shake loose
the last of the soft pink thumbprints.
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Gerry McFarland lives in Seattle. E-mail: longlife@telisphere.com |