Dishes - Jeffrey Foucault

Do the dishes

With the windows open

Soak the dirt

From under your nails

Pour a double

Put a record on the table

The light’s always perfect

Just before it fails

Bow your head down

When you break bread together

Close your eyes

Make a circle of hands

There is nothing

That cannot be taken from you

In this life we just hold on

To the love that we have

Swing the axe

In the hour before daylight

Note the sparks

That attend to the blade

A thing made free

Of itself leaps apart

And the heart divided

Would do just the same

Take the back roads

With nobody on them

Find a river

Make yourself clean

Go down to the water

If you would be delivered

Of sinner and sin

Seen and unseen

Step outside

Let the stars reel around you

Cup your hands

Around a bright flame

In that darkness

Let the heavens confound you

It’s all just a story

Even the sound of your name