Potting Tables

Once more that poor dirt

is blamed for all the sores

and bodily hurts,

when we are really looking

out for a tendency to bump

into life, bruise out our hips

and stub our toes on

the corners and legs of

tilting tables.

This life needs a

matchbox folder under a

leg, a placemat to

cover a burn, a little

polish into the corner that

gets the light, while

the hips and toes still ache.

So where do dirt and tables

meet in the confusion

of life, but in the

potting shed of course,

where roots are jammed

into pots, my root

into this pot, yours in that,

placed on this table,

in patch of light.

Stub a toe, water a pot,

wipe a spill from some tilting

table’s scratched and burned surface,

that resists all polish.

And pot and pot with fierce

fingers all hurts into

damp mossy stoneware,

to contain the spread of

unstable tables and rooting stems

into every room in the house.