Three Poems
Haiku
Work: fill and be emptied.
Be filled and empty.
The well is never dry.
The Forks’ Chorus
also for Geri
We aren’t
the Rockettes
but we tap
a fine
line
Our tines
define
pie crust
design
Linguine
twines
around
our spines
Waist
lines
grow
porcine
You dine
we shine
Song of the Shirt
I sit upstairs
drenched in light
listening to the hum
of the dryer,
the steady thrum
of our shirts,
socks, underwear,
and sheets
rolling together,
mingling, mingling.
I can remember days
when love was starched
as collars, sharp and keen;
when I was rinsed so blue
and bleached out,
that I applied
for a life alone,
a separate hamper.
And now you're here,
love softens all;
our cycles merge
and we spin in our days
like the laundry,
each a separate piece,
but folding together
at a touch, a touch
as we go round and round
in our circle of years.
—Barbara Crooker, Fogelsville, PA
