For Now

I Stop Writing the Poem

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives

or who dies, I'm still a woman.

I'll always have plenty to do.

I bring the arms of his shirt

together. Nothing can stop

our tenderness. I'll get back

to the poem. I'll get back to being

a woman. But for now

there's a shirt, a giant shirt

in my hands, and somewhere a small girl

standing next to her mother

watching to see how it's done.

-Tess Gallagher