ANNA GREENE

by Janet Joyner

 

 

Anna’s domain was the wash,
which doesn’t sound like much,
but took an entire empire of terrain.
The back yard for The Pot, on its three legs,
above The Fire, bordered by The Tubs.
One each, in ascending order, depending
on which bits of the cauldron’s stew
went where after they all boiled away
at their dirt and sins of the day
to do their stint in rinsing, to rise
resurrected into bluing, for the whites
only, with starching reserved
for the ones that would, eventually,
have to stand on their own, before they
all were hung. Hung out on Anna’s lines
to be saved, to live again.

 

 

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