WEDNESDAY

Wednesday,
And in the houses
All kinds of weathers.

It would be so good
To spread the day
Over one's knees like a quilt,
To stare long at the walls,

But all the husbands
Are off to the woods
To chop down the long pines
Because the sky is sagging
And the pines would prop it.

And the women look about them.
Their houses are sloven,
Each room filled with its weather:
Fog in the parlor,
A light fall of snow in the hall,
A heavy rain in the parlor,
And icicles like teeth
From the beams of the kitchen.

The women feed their wood stoves
And push back their hair.
The stoves are snappish.
The weather goes up the chimney,
Like snow swirling up.

Perhaps now they can stop.
But the windows are massing with cats.
The cats have come from all over.
The air smells of fish
As if they lived in a seaport.

The women sigh
And take up their baskets of cod heads,
They follow the cats out to the meadow,
And there it is,

Fish-smelling, Lying on its back,
Dark silver,
Tarnished almost to black,
The crescent moon, helpless,
Exhausted from swimming the skies.

The cats eat the cod heads;
The housewives scour and polish.
It is worse than cleaning a thousand burnt pots,
First one pot shines,
Then another.

Behind them, the women hear the sky
Creak into place.
They sigh with great satisfaction
And the moon shines
And the sky darkens

As the sun goes down
And the women form a circle
Around the meadow,

They watch the moon rock
And lift up,
Its sharp edges, its prow.

Their eyes are like coins,
Moon-silver.
When they go home,
The wood stoves are singing,

Their husbands
Have made dinner and beds.
The dinners go uneaten.

It is Wednesday,
And under the moon,
The men and women are howling
Like sleek silver wolves.

The silver cats lick their lips
And are off.