The Ironing Board
The Ironing Board hasn’t left the closet in years
She sneezes at her own dust
clatters on to the damp mop
about the old basement laundry
the joys of never being collapsed
I used to hold things, she says
She goes on about the iron
and that tricky heat, the ashtray
the cigarettes with their
smooth spirals of smoke
the diet pepsi always tinkling her ice
The Ironing Board was essential
and sturdy in her time
her crossed T-legs held up
countless indeterminate moments
Every day she stood
in front of that washer and dryer
like exact proof of a mother
Now she’s given up her dreams
for a new wardrobe of linen shirts
She makes a dash for it one spring
cleaning afternoon, lets her sturdy legs
take her on a giddy, hobbling flight
No one hears from her for months
There’s an uncomfortable hope
that she’s made it to the edge of town
has found some peace
or repurpose at the city dump
She turns up eventually in the park
feeding chunks of bread to intransient ducks
I miss the cigarettes, she says to a mallard
and the pepsi and the melting ice
She leans back against the sun-warmed bench
The iron was kind of a bastard, she breathes
folding and unfolding her legs
Portrait of a Poet Unhappy With the Size of His Crowd
His ears were new in town but he’d
been listening to them all his life. His hair
had receded into these ears, disappeared
entirely from his head. The mustache
that lived on his lip was a healthy
much loved dear, a deliciously pampered
only child. He could open his mouth
lift the moustache lid
and tell you everything about his teeth
He came up my stairs dreading
niceties, introduced himself as a caricature
I wanted to erase. At our wedding
reception his brother exposed himself
to the bridesmaid while an earthquake
toppled honeymoons in the tropics
We moved into a moldy home furnished
at bargain prices. Mornings I drank
strawberry daiquiris in a soft blue
bathrobe and wrote poems about nausea
He died first and I had his mustache removed
in one piece. I wanted to see
if it could fly
I wanted the casket closed
Carol Graser runs the poetry reading series at Saratoga’s legendary Caffè Lena and has performed her work at various events and venues around New York. Her work’s been published in many literary journals and she is the author of the poetry collection, The Wild Twist of Their Stems (Foothills Publishing).