Barbara Crooker
is the author of Radiance, a collection of poetry; her second book, Line Dance, publishes in December of 2007. Both are from Word Press.
Her journal credits include Yankee, Smartish Pace, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod, and The Denver Quarterly. Among her many awards are three creative writing fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the 2004 W.B. Yeats Society of New York Award, and the 2003 Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award (selected by Stanley Kunitz).
Barbara lives in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, with her husband and son, who has autism.
—Back to Work Poetry Contents—
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The Last Woman in America to Wash Diapers
lugs the full pail down to the first floor,
heaves it in the washer, makes it spin its offal load.
How many diapers has she sloshed in the toilet,
how many neatly folded stacks has she raised skyward,
soft white squares of cotton, pieces of cloud,
how many double and triple folds has she pinned
on little bottoms? How many nights
of checking beds did she find those buns
raised in the air, loaves resting on a bakery shelf?
She knows the power of bleach, the benefits of rinsing.
On winter nights, when the snow comes down
in glittery drifts, she sees Ivory Flakes,
their slippery iridescence. When it comes
to dealing with the shit in her life,
nothing else is so simple, so white, so clean.
Originally published in Footwork: The Paterson Literary Review, 1989
Patty’s Charcoal Drive-in
First job. In tight black shorts
and a white bowling shirt, red lipstick
and bouncing pony tail, I present
each overflowing tray as if it were a banquet.
I’m sixteen and college-bound,
this job’s temporary as the summer sun,
but right now, it’s the boundaries of my life.
After the first few nights of mixed orders
and missing cars, the work goes easily.
I take out the silver trays and hook them to the windows,
inhale the mingled smells of seared meat patties,
salty ketchup, rich sweet malteds.
The lure of grease drifts through the thick night air.
And it’s always summer at Patty’s Charcoal Drive In—
carloads of blonde-and-tan girls
pull up next to red convertibles,
boys in black tee shirts and slick hair.
Everyone knows what they want.
And I wait on them, hoping for tips,
loose pieces of silver
flung carelessly as the stars.
Doo-wop music streams from the jukebox
and each night repeats itself,
faithful as a steady date.
Toward 10 P.M., traffic dwindles.
We police the lot, pick up wrappers.
The dark pours down, sticky as Coke,
but the light from the kitchen
gleams like a beacon.
A breeze comes up, chasing papers
in the far corners of the darkened lot,
as if suddenly a cold wind had started to blow
straight at me from the future—
I read that in a Doris Lessing book—
but right now, purse fat with tips,
the moon sitting like a cheeseburger on a flat black grill,
this is enough.
Your order please.
Originally published in The Devil's Millhopper, 1990 and in
For a Living (University of Illinois Press, 1995)
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