LINDA MALNACK

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REPETITION IS A KIND OF RHYME


You ask what has become of me why I haven’t
written my best guess is that until now I have
left you out of the rhythm of my life sorry you
ask me to write about a typical day to tease
a few lines from me well I’ll tell you that today
I simmered vegetable soup baked eight meat
and potato pirozhki shaped a pile of apples
and dough into two golden steam-filled pies
I washed shirts dried jeans folded towels scoured
pots wiped plates put silverware away I dusted
swept changed baby’s diapers fed him walked
him bathed him wrapped gifts for his birthday
and all day I have read poems at the stove
in the bathroom in the midst of mud tracked in
again at the back door sometimes it takes me days
to read the thinnest volumes I’ll tell you that
I still write poetry but lately my lines appear
most frequently in the skin on my hands and
around my eyes that my pay is smiles hugs maybe
sex on a good day that I have learned to value
myself as the wife mother friend I am rug shaker
pasta strainer stain lifter mop pusher gardener
and I assure you I am still a letter writer as well
as poet student critiquer speaker reader discusser
of art philosophy poetry what goes into a line
what makes a rhyme I’ll tell you that my life all
together is a repetition of sound task tension
external and internal that this repetition is a kind
of rhyme that I’ve become a kind of poem


© 1995, Linda Malnack

Linda Malnack works as a proofreader and technical writer/editor. She owns and operates Manuscripts, Etc., a business in Seahurst, WA, which specializes in all phases of manuscript preparation. Her poetry has appeared in Arnazella, Slightly West, TAPJoE, and several other journals.