Woman Encounters Haystack
by Erika Mailman
photo by Adrian Bancu on Pexels
It was from another century
It made her feel broken
it hissed of cows and ploughshares
Men who didn’t have time
to talk to their womenfolk
who were sick with shame
if they burned dinner for
no one ate and the cow
was dishonored.
The straw spoke
of how night would claim
them all if the woman
told her desire to make art,
of her dispute with the cast
iron stove, her despair
at the pot cloth darns
that fell apart and scorches
on the bread that rose too high
because she did not punch
down the dough enough
and did not appease the yeast
and she the howl mistress of it all
in the yard in the field
craving the woods and concealing moon
even before the children came
and clamored for milk
misunderstanding their role
Erika Mailman attended University of Arizona, Tucson, for her MFA in poetry, and her work has appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review and the Greensboro Review. She's a novelist with Random House, Kensington, and others, and a freelance writer with the Washington Post, Smithsonian, Wall Street Journal and others. www.erikamailman.com
