Rungs of A Ladder

1.
she fits my bowl, fills my bowl
with her full hips, her shoulders, slim

woman for my tea, my taste, exactly
measured out in coffee spoons

I’ll be kept up with pen in hand

2.
White Rub, black woman
in a ball in bed in bad weather
wanting warmth, wanting health

my job to love her, to help her recover
her smile, her laughter

must take her back where I met her
into the sea, laughing among the waves
wearing little in addition to wetness, to water

Saunders Beach among casuarina trunks,
old and tall and thick

my pick-up-truck, pulled in, parked between trees

I have a towel to dry her off,
must wrap her up, let no one see

in bed in White Rub in winter
waiting for/wanting our season to change,
for winter to lift

in church last evening, black tam
covered half her head

3.
so much history in her hips,
all coiled up, so tightly wound

undo it, how far back in time

it would pass through towns,
wrap around these tiny rocks of islands, cays
wrap about this planet, the spinning earth

hips like hers, turn heads


4.
another man’s wife to make poetry of
Kool-Aid packet

strawberry, orange, cherry to rip open,
pour the powder out, into water in a pitcher

we use to use a wooden spoon to stir it
add ice cubes

thirsty children with plastic glasses
Kool-Aid to drink with sausage sandwiches

summer break, off from school, hours to kill
in coconut tree, in dilly tree

in the dirt upon ours knees
marbles in a ring to contest for

there was jacks, jump rope, tops to spin, to split

when tired, when hungry,
we’d gather in the kitchen,
make Kool-Aid, make sandwiches

before returning to all the games,
all the things the back yard and the summer offered

what games can we invent, can we play
in these modern, adult days


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
1:49 a.m. 07/feb/06