Coming Full Circle

Now that the semester is over, the fact that I will not be returning to Tech for the fall semester is really being to hit home. As I prepare for the multitude of changes I will be facing this summer and in the coming semester, I am reminded of a poem I wrote for my creative writing class this last fall.

Dishes

Around once, around twice, around

again and again she went, carefully

dragging striped cloth through watery

iridescence. Pulling back, her hands stung

like one thousand small pricks from one thousand microscopic needles.

How many more must she do before she was done?

Twenty? Thirty? Ninety?

"Because I'm your mother and I told you to."

"But it doesn't have to be done,

not now, not ever!"

she had said.

"Back in my day. . ."

"Back in your day, not my

day, not this

day," she had said.

Still, she went around

and around, like she had been doing for days, weeks, months.

Each circle brought more options

and more choices.

If only each circle

could be retraced back,

even as she now reversed

the motion of the striped cloth. Entropy

wouldn't allow it. Quandaries

became more complex

just as the universe became ever more unordered.

Would anything ever be simple;

would this

ever end?

Yes, this was it, the last

one. As she lifted it out, it shone

like a twin of the full moon, now rising

from the watery depths to meet

its partner at the sill. Stepping back,

she held out her hands, grasping

at thin air, as if to decide

which disk was hers.

Her focus wavered

and then came a crash

and a tinkling shower. The silent

patter of falling from her fingertips could not

then mask the flood. . .

pouring down. . .

and down. . .

her face.