Image courtesy of Georgie Sharp. Shared via a Creative Commons license. 

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History of Wash

The white plastic clothes pegs on the wash line at
‘Milford’, are the knobby joints of a dinosaur’s spine.
Pants and hose, the ribs which almost touch ground.

May, Rita bend over the wringer, talk of Littlewood’s
football pool results. Pull through starch towels
flat as dough for afternoon sugar cookies. Sheets

outside the window are the flapping tents for me
to sojourn into a future, or are the wide aprons
under which I can stand still, hide, remain bound.

 

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Light Housekeeping

Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, spills white light like
a salt shaker, pours sodium into the air and ocean.

Spreads it over the South Shore, stiffens waves
into starched sheets, tips peg them on a line.

I hear town trucks shovel snow in CT, slam in
and out of  my driveway, a tide pounds with rhythm.

A permanent  line of breaking surf  is left,
salt is being thrown over the backs of fences.

I spread bits of sodium in front of my saltbox
to melt a frozen path, tears that turn ice into saltwater.

 

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Tally

The Canary Island Date Palm
resembles the plaited mane
of a horse on show at Botanical
Gardens. The crisscross trunk,

a braid. The Cuban Royal Palm,
a whip, insures the manicured
lawn pulled in tightly, performs.
Its tall rake makes even the semi-

tropical breezes cleaner. Back
in New England, leaves fall
out, trees all in tatters like baggy
pants beggars. Shapes small

as a bird, bright as a Bermuda
five pound canary note, stack
up. A gambler has a bad night,
throws it all down, ends  up with

a large nought as the Brits say.
Oh, the utter relief of it!
The sun’s zero, a tally of no
wins, now to be seen by all.

 

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Tea Bags

These two sachets, saddle bags which could have
been strapped on a mare the colour of Earl Grey tea.

Kick up dirt from the spoon scoop of horseshoes
as spindly legs trot over the Twining’s Estate, India.

Who are the English to persuade steaming nations
to drink tea while they try to pour the milk of human

kindness into borders? I extract cream from a pint
sized plastic container; it funnels into an elephant’s

trunk. Outside,a tent trailer is pitched on Nettleton
Hollow; extends sides clumsy as calf’s ears. Someone

safaris in bucolic Washington, CT, and I am on one
too as I drink a liquid I learned to love in a hot climate,

sip from the perpetual water lily of a Limoge cup,
saucer. Night’s dark brew sifts into porous flaps of

a camper as this khaki drink sludges through, maps
my body out with memories, I raise the flag of a pinky to.

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Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet. Her book Somersault is forthcoming from Guernica Editions(CA). Her poems have appeared  in Edinburgh Review (UK),  Agenda  (UK), The International Literary Quarterly (UK), Stand (UK), Magma (UK), Journal of Postcolonial Writing (UK), Mslexia (UK), New Welsh Review (UK) The Moth (IE), A New Ulster (IE), The Fiddlehead (CA), The Dalhousie Review (CA) Transnational Literatures (AU), Postcolonial Text (CA), The Caribbean Writer (VI), tongues of the ocean (BS),Sargasso: Journal of Caribbean Literature (PR) Proud Flesh: New Afrikan Journal of Culture, Politics, Consciousness, (USA), Journal of Caribbean Literatures (USA), Hampton Sydney Poetry Review (USA) Theodate (USA). She has poems forthcoming in The Arts Journal (GY) and on The Toronto Quarterly blog (CA). She has an M Litt in Creative Writing from University of Glasgow, is a MacDowell Fellow and teaches poetry workshops in Bermuda.