What are we folding when we are folding laundry in quarantine Standing four feet apart, you take one edge of the sheet, I take the other. We walk towards one another, creating order. Like solemn campers folding a flag in the early morning light. But this is no flag. This is where we love and sleep. There was a time we forgot to do this-- to fold with and toward one another, to make the edges clean together. My grandmother might have said: There is always more laundry to do-- and that is a blessing because it means you did more living which means you get to do more cleaning. We forgot for a while that one large blanket is too difficult for one chin to hold and two hands to fold alone-- That there is more beauty in the walking toward the fold, and in the shared labor. For my sister Kate because I can't fly to Chicago to dance with you on your big birthday during quarantine We two sisters made up dances in the cold room. You flung me over your shoulder. I skiddled through your legs. You were strong enough to hold me. You still are. At weddings we shocked and delighted all the man-lady wedding pairs by dancing together crazy, sisters. You dipped me, my head grazing the ground. You were strong so I didn't hurt my head. You still are. The body in flight was never easy for me but you leant me that joy, that motion. Giddy. Laughing at the air, so insubstantial, when the arms slice through. On Homesickness, Back when we Traveled What is your malady? Asked the form at the community acupuncture clinic. My pen hovered--so many to choose from: the thyroid, the gut, the face. I found myself writing: Homesickness. I handed in my form. I wondered if the doctor with the needles would laugh at me, but he said instead: I am homesick too. And then he put needles in my ears and my ankles and I fell asleep. Around me, strangers slept needled dreams, under warm blankets. And I thought: at home in the world. The endless desire to be at home in the world. Separating the laundry, June 6 I separate white laundry from colors. I pour in bleach to make "my whites whiter". And yesterday Breonna Taylor had her birthday only she was dead. And yesterday Donald Trump said what a great day it was for George Floyd only he was dead. And I pour in a capful of bleach, the same bleach Donald Trump advised us to drink so we don't get the plague. And I contemplate rage. And I think about my white skin while I do my laundry. Mothers' Day Before the world was burning (and it is always burning) I read about the history of Mother's Day, how the apostrophe mysteriously jumped from Mothers' to Mother's, over time. That jumping punctuation hid the the original purpose of the day. When Mother's Day was Mothers' Day (meaning all mothers, plural), Julia Ward Howe, an abolitionist and suffragist, called for a day where mothers could work for peace. When Mother's Day was Mothers' Day, she said: mothers have had enough of their sons being murdered in wars-- we should love other women's sons as much as our own, across nations, across tribes, so that murder on a large scale never happens again. When Mother's Day was Mothers' Day, she called upon women to raise their voices, gather, sing, pray and insist upon peace. She knew that peace was work. Now that Mothers' Day is Mother's Day, (apostrophe before the S), some individual women have breakfast in bed, one day of appreciation for their labor. Now that Mothers' Day is Mother's Day, we pay florists and the Hallmark company. Sometimes mothers (I imagine them to be white) don't get a waffle in bed and are sad. But the original Mothers' Day proclaimed: Peace is as peace does. To make peace, we say. Peace is a doing, a making. Can we get out of bed and do the work of peace? To say: No mother's child should be murdered by the state. And then to say out loud those mothers' names, even as George Floyd cried out for his mother before he was murdered: Larcenia Floyd. Tamika Palmer. Wanda Cooper-Jones. Gwen Carr. Mamie Till Mobley: who chose to keep her son's casket open for all the world to see. I am running out of things to cook Tater-tots are the food of the gods but you can't eat them every day. And that is enough for now Day unfolded, the children were fed three times, and day folded back into night. Love poem to my husband who fixed the Scotch tape dispenser today The tape was unseen, trapped in itself; you found the beginning again. Remembered poem of a 2nd grader named Patrick who I taught in Queens, twenty five years ago Sing while you think. A poem is not so hard if you sing while you think. Excerpted from Love Poems in Quarantine by Sarah Ruhl All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
