Marys Duties

by Lola Haskins
     He is rid away to the tenant farms
     and I take up my pen to list
     the shakings-out and openings.
     And my thin letters lean as sails
     that， though driven， cannot arrive.
     May the ninth， I write.
     And： Mrs. Ferguson.
     Unbutton the bed pillows
     and plump them to the air.
     Then： Take the curtains down
     and with your broom unseat
     the spiders' webs. Open
     the windows and leave them
     wide and here the thread trails
     off， among the cottages
     with their spring festoons of eggs
     pricked with pins and blown，
     fragile as the blacksmith's daughter
     dreaming in the sun， who lifts
     her skirts above her white knees.
     I pull back behind a hedge.
     Let her not meet me， with my dry pen