To Make a Living
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


A. E. Stallings

has received numerous awards for her poetry, including the Richard Wilbur Award, the 2004 Frederick Bock Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award.  She is the author of two collections of poetry, Archaic Smile and Hapax.

Stallings studied classics in Athens, Georgia, and now lives in Athens, Greece with her husband, the journalst John Psaropoulos, and their son Jason.  Website.


—Back to Work Poetry Contents—

Menielle

I’ve dragged my weary feet home after dusk
And a day of boiling tea and burning milk.
Long have I toiled at the thankless task.

I’ve done the washing up, smiled through my mask,
Taken dictation and jobs of that ilk
And dragged my weary feet home after dusk.

Some give orders who could simply ask
In voices hissing soft as rustled silk.
Long have I toiled at the thankless task

And long have I made change, and made it brisk,
Though nothing changes: customers carp and bilk,
& I drag my weary feet home after dusk.

To soothe the angry, I have tapped the cask
Of patience dry, and nursed them through their sulk.
Long have I toiled at the thankless task

And wishes I could glare like a basilisk
Or Medusa, but I’m the one who turns to chalk,
Dragging my stony feet home after dusk.
Long have I toiled at the thankless task.

 

Originally published in Archaie Smile (The University of Evansville Press, 1999)



 
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