In My Anger Your Touch
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In my anger your touch
is that of a washerwoman
soaping crooked paving stones
down a cold and narrow one-way
street each morning, as her
mother did, her mother’s mother.
The bucket steams as we go by,
hurriedly, on our way to school,
salon lavoir, grocery store,
—anywhere, as long as we’ve
passed before she squeegees
to the curb dogshit and lye.
Every day the same.

Every day the same:
something in the way we rise
to night’s deposits, riverdrift,
rain’s remains, the crumpled,
peeling odds or bitter ends of
what, in time, may taint love
loves us just the same.
At the corner you turn
half-way to glance at where
she bends, her apron laughs.
Then take my hand.
Every place must have its god
and here is no different.