The Domestic Sublime

My dears, my dears, I say to the plates and the spoons.
Iris Murdoch

The Surface of Things

Pleasantly rolling deodorant into an oxter
He thought of the shave ahead,
Whether to start in the upper left-hand corner
Or the slant of his jaw instead.

From the loose aggregate of these choices
A common life is made,
Fate no more than a thicket of brand-names
And the moment when you delayed.

Saucer

who first spotted the lack
not that is the slip
in between the cup and lip
but down under a hot mug
or cup?
yet if it comes to that
a plate would merely be over the top

something then to stop the drips
or keep the pea soup off your lap
complicate the washing up
stop a simple splash
or slop
and sit here for the waiter's tip

sad without a cup

Indoor Yachting

Has any mere scribbler
ever spotted or caught

that fine dramatic gesture
by which a homebody

standing down at the bed-end
flourishes a wide clean sheet and

blows it out like a spinnaker
so that the far end

will flutter down in place
where a pillow will be,

once again
getting it right?

Coat Hangers Galore

Clubbable and promiscuous,
they hang around
getting under your feet
while always intending to be helpful;

wiry and would-be athletic
they just keep falling into a tangle
putting a foot
in somebody else's mouth.

Garlic

Adhesive, papery,
the wan delicate skin
sticks for just a smidgen
too long, until

a naked clove
comes out successfully
shining
virginal as the dawn

yet leaving
its ripe sex on your fingers
for quite some time.

At the Clothesline

What I'd thought a fallen shirt
Under the line, flat on the grass
Was nothing but my shadow there,
Hinting that all things pass:

That many we loved or used to know
Are dragged already out of sight,
Vanished fast, though stepping slow,
Folded into remorseless night.

My dark trace now has quit the lawn.
Everything slips away too soon,
Yet something leaves its mark here like
A rainbow ring around the moon.