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Wisconsin Belle

A pale Wisconsin winter sun does not warm,
only lends its light as a wraith too thin and wan
Greenery imposes itself on the landscape
A lush land that is bitter in winter - lovely in spring
A house, peeling, sits on a knoll, looking as poor
as the farmers who live there

A sleeping garden is a circus of sticks and poles,
cornstalks and cabbages gone to seed

The back door of the house opens wide to
a slab-faced woman with a crutch under one arm
and a basket of laundry under the other
Red of face, skin like cowhide , she makes
her way to the yards

Her wash-dress is long, and a pale gray,
that seems to speak to her dreary life
Someone has made a laundry line
between two almost-rotted crosses
The rope sags like an old woman's breasts

Next to the line is a milking stool
weathered by years of harsh weather and use

Putting aside her crutch, the woman
settles the stump of her right leg 
on the stool and begins to pin the gray wash

She pins and scoots, her red handkerchief
binding up her hair, her graceful movements,
lending beauty to her disability

When the wash is hung, she takes up
her crutch and carries the empty basket
back to the dilapidated house that is her home

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