Wool Washing
I like to wash wool blankets
in a rubber tub, stomping
as if I live on a vineyard,
the detritus of a year
squelching and puffing
between my feet. I remember
my great aunt who crocheted
them, the darkly churning
water of the creek behind
her house, here viscous, here
hissing, streaked with tannins,
slipping forward, doubling
back on itself. I go to her creek
mentally sometimes, before
morning when I can’t sleep.
I wake up too free. Phantom
pain in phantom limbs. Awake
with nothing to tend to, I …
