MARILYN JOHNSON

after the painting by Stanford Kay


We have to scrub everything when we close the beach house for
the season, or the ants will strap it to their backs and walk off.
They take juice glasses, place mats. One year the endtable,
coffee-ringed, rum-stained. The books are hopeless, pages
like napkins-- cocoa butter, red sauce, barbecue. I tried vacuuming,
I tried sealing the books in plastic tubs with bungee cords.
The only thing that works is the dishwasher. Load 'em up.
Sani-wash. Air dry an hour or two, then pile the books flat. Yes,
they lose something. Words, the occasional whole line, wash away,
punctuation like black antennae running down the drain.
A certain sense goes missing…. But the books are still here
when we come back in spring, and the sun looks so pretty on the stacks.