Hard Water

Hard water

some never hold court in the dusty palaces where poems are built,

fearing the presence of other writers, their discreet finger trails drawn across cornices, their drawn breaths in steamy

breathless bathrooms where wadded washcloths may lie,

their stray tongues hung out from drawers slightly agape,

cupboards hastily re-sorted & on gradually warped

mantels, telltale fingerprints under wordless prim commentary

of an index finger’s intrusive none too subtle path through sticky dust

somehow recently & yet chronically overlooked,

aging plastic shower curtains folded back

to expose rusted hinges & encrusted fixtures; 

hutches where teacups are stared into & then quietly left unchosen,

& instead show up as lines in poems about rugged writers

going blind in semi darkness with only the solitary locust chirp,

whose attentions, easily stolen by distant dragonflies, traveling troubadours & faraway flutists live frivolous lives

abandoning carefully troubled gardeners, but suddenly

stopped by the whimsical

line of notice in another writer's quick review:

after the bold signature that notes w obligatory smugness how

comparison is odious,

obvious embattled streaks of smudge marching across  majestically windowed views in other scribblers’ dusty lodgings,

litters of aging dust bunnies shaking silently & pinkeyed perhaps

beneath faded furniture,

droll note is taken of the drinking glass that does not glisten,

allusion to dead relatives whose feral photos sit framed

in occluded corners,

the housekeeper who blames everything on hard water,

the industrious daddy-long-legs spider whose webby home is safely chandeliered above the telescoping dust-ragged pole

one brief poetic mention of the single dying philodendron that struggles bravely potted in a piece of outdated, overcrowded antique crockery,

limbs reaching languidly from room to room

barely breathing,

cornered, slowing turning yellow, the unspeakable family invalid

pallid poems surely symptomatic of deferred maintenance

of a soul’s inner life, one small step for negligence, a master stroke

for modern living.