The women are gathered at the back porch sink.
The chintz curtains say it’s just evening again,
but a worrisome breeze has started to fumble
at the dishtowels draped over drawers and cane chairs.
The plates are rinsed, all shelved, the bread pans
patted dry, coated with lard for the first morning loaves.
Someone has shaken every piece of good linen clean-
they should sit down to their sewing and talk.
But you can see through the fine screen the apple limbs shiver.
No catbird or usual breeze could rustle them so.
The women are bothered before any rumble
like a runner of ivy has slipped up the wall.
They stay by the window. They watch the white
blossoms, like spoonsful of flour, twirl
among grit and ripped leaves at the foot
of the water tank, next to the smokehouse wall:
like a tornado, only small, but that’s where to go to-
the smokehouse to wait out what falls.
After coffee and bread the men are excused
to the front room. They nod in their papers alone.
The women look up where the black clouds
and night swirl together. Already gusts have
swept out the kitchen, drawn the strong fragrance
of permanent blueing from the afternoon air.
There’s a winding of string, a straightening of things.
There’s a nervous touching of fingertips to hair-
not that it will help, not that anything’s wrong.
But now that the curtains are standing straight out,
there comes a rubbing of hands, and not as in cleaning.
As when something’s put away, but it won’t stay down.
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