out of print

after a century,
               it was mine

               the book called The Young Wife's Help
               gave recipes for johnny cake
               cures for garden blight
               dates for butchering
               remedies for colic
               advice on modesty and voice
               and hints for dying on the farm

               my apple pie was adequate, but
                    my training lacked in
                    making up the
                    proper death bed
               luckily, there was a chart

               had she known, my grandmother?
               the coverings to save the mattress,
               layers to spare the down
               the words “soiling of the linens after
                    the beloved has expired”
               told me more of fate than Sartre

               my grandmother,
                    a festival of regulations
                    and the last of hers to live
               why didn't she say
               “you wet your pants when you die”?

               I would have been so careful
                    in the car and
                    in the city
               and the chances taken would
                    have been free of strangers

               had she watched me,
               arrogant in the plum tree,
               and remembered moving into rooms
                    busied with blankets
                    speaking low,
               saying words to send
                    the boys to draw the
               water for the washing?