Featured Poem 1/1/03:

Anniversaries

She stuffs with reassurance
puts into writing the overfilled shelves
he built for her books.

The faucet he installed pours tenderness
equally over her aunt's depression glass
and the everyday flea-market dishes.

Devotion drips from the gutters
and funnels through downspouts
into the rain barrel of the garden
they water together.

Amorousness shines from the bulb he replaced
by the door and spreads a circle of light
on the porch they built and the rug she wove.

He fitted the washing machine with new belts
and hoses so that it fills, even agitated
with adoration that lingers in the folds
of her clothes and the toes of her socks.

She mends the seams of the old quilts
that warm their bed with passion,
and stitches patches over cloth worn
thin or growing frayed.

Smudges of discontent cloud the mirrors
in their home. They each, in secret,
spray annoyance on them and scrub
tham with a cloth of denial.

Neither one knows it is power
that fills a chest in the attic,
and each believes the other alone knows
the combination that will unlock it.

© Chrysse Everhart

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