Clothesline

Thud on the back porch, faint crackle
of my grandmother’s wicker basket,
glasses down to the tip of her bent nose
her Cherokee cheekbones
arms reaching, snip snap of clothespins,
precision accuracy like a soldier manning
a machine gun, hang and clip,
a fiery exchange that sparks
from her knotted hands drying since WWI
against melancholy stray dogs,
against June’s purple Flags, April’s red mud
along the rutted road to highway 51,
against cooing grey doves crouching next to
the cracked chimney crown, a noble wall cloud
whipping clothes off the line.















For Nettie Leigh