My Grandmother Washes Her Vessels
In the white-washed medical-smelling milkhouse
She wrestled clanging steel; grumbled and trembled,
Hoisting the twenty-gallon cans to the ledge
Of the spring-run (six by three, a concrete grave
Of slow water). Before she toppled them in —
Dented armored soldiers booming in pain —
She stopped to rest, brushing a streak of damp
Hair back, white as underbark. She sighed.
“I ain’t strong enough no more to heft these things.
I could now and then wish for a man
Or two … Or maybe not. More trouble, likely,
Than what their rations will get them to do.”
The August six o’clock sunlight struck a wry
Oblong on the north wall. Yellow light entering
This bone-white milkhouse recharged itself white,
Seeped pristine into the dozen strainer cloths
Drying overhead.
“Don’t you like men?”
Her hand hid the corner of her childlike grin
Where she’s dropped her upper plate and left a gap.
“Depends on the use you want them for,” she said.
“Some things they’re good at, some they oughtn’t touch.”
“Wasn’t Grandaddy a good carpenter?”
She nodded absentminded. “He was fine.
Built churches, houses, barns in seven counties.
Built the old trout hatchery on Balsam . . .
Here. Give me hand.”
We lifted down
Gently a can and held it till it drowned.
Gushed out of its headless neck a musky clabber
Whitening water like a bedsheet ghost.
I thought, Here spills the soldier’s spirit out;
If I could drink a sip I’d know excitements
He has known; travails, battles, tourneys,
A short life fluttering with pennants.
She grabbed
A frazzly long-handled brush and scrubbed his innards
Out. Dun flakes of dried milk floated up,
Streamed drainward. In his trachea water sucked
Obscenely, graying like a storm-sky.
“You never told me how you met.”
She straightened,
Rubbed the base of her spine with a dripping hand.
“Can’t recollect. Some things, you know, just seem
To go clear from your mind. Probably
He spotted me at a prayer meeting, or it could
Have been a barn-raising. That was the way
We did things then. Not like now, with the men
All hours cavorting up and down in cars.”
Again she smiled. I might have sworn she winked.
“But what do you remember?”
“Oh, lots of things.
About all an old woman is good for
Is remembering. … But getting married to Frank
Wasn’t the beginning of my life.
I’d taught school up Greasy Branch since I
Was seventeen. And I took the first census
Ever in Madison County. You can’t see
It now, but there was a flock of young men come
Knocking on my door. If I’d a mind
I could have danced six nights of the week.“
We tugged the cleaned can out, upended it
To dry on the worn oak ledge, and pushed the other
Belching in. Slowly it filled and sank.
“Of course, it wasn’t hard to pick Frank out,
The straightest-standing man I ever saw.
Had a waxed moustache and a chestnut mare.
Before I’d give my say I made him cut
That moustache off. I didn’t relish kissing
A briar patch. He laughed when I said that,
Went home and shaved. … It wasn’t the picking and saying
that caused me ponder, though. Getting married —
In church — in front of people — for good and all:
It makes you pause. Here I was twenty-eight,
Strong and healthy, not one day sick since I
Was born. What cause would I have to be waiting
On a man?”
Suddenly she sat on the spring-run edge
And stared bewildered at empty air, murmuring.
“I never said this to a soul, I don’t
Know why … I told my papa, ’Please hitch me
The buggy Sunday noon. I can drive
Myself to my own wedding.’ That’s what I did,
I drove myself. A clear June day as cool
As April, and I came to where we used to ford
Laurel River a little above Coleman’s mill,
And I stopped the horse and I thought and thought
If I cross this river I won’t turn back. I’ll join
to that blue-eyed man as long as I’ve got breath.
There won’t be nothing I can feel alone
About again. My heart came to my throat.
I suppose I must have wept. And then I heard
A yellowhammer in a willow tree
Just singing out, ringing like a dance-fiddle
Over the gurgly river-sound, just singing
To make the whole world hush to listen to him.
And then my tears stopped dropping down, and I touched
Nellie with the whip, and we crossed over.”