Poem For Woman Hanging Wash Poem by Khristian E. Kay

There’s a stray of hair whipped free
by the wind
plays inattentive across your cheek
as your hands dance supple against
the calico and hemp
arranging with operative precision
like the sun gleam
against your alabaster cheek
golden in your eyes shining

With deliberate passion your hands
clip the multi colored cloth waving
like a message from a waning ship
as if you could just reach out and pluck
it from the waves like child’s play

You reach back tying the strands
back wrapping the errant pieces into a
careful knot tight each
belonging in its place
like ships sailing
flagging their unanswered calls

wanting and just out of reach


(1993)