Tasks

And always along the way, there’s housework.

Forget the computer, the checkbook,

the inscrutable repair of whatever

overheats or squeaks or ices over.

Never mind the wooden lamppost, rotten,

fallen on its face like a corpse in the wet grass,

which needs to be cut. Your allotted

jobs are to dust, fold the laundry, tasks

in which you take such unsung pleasure

I’m abashed. I’m sorting cutlery; I’m Job

in a bathrobe, wondering where oh where

in the wrong drawer you put it. “We’ll make

a good wife of you yet,” I nearly joke.

But look at you: so happy, I bite my tongue.