Angela deCorpo and the Egg-man

First floor tenement living and

The benefits are transcendent. 

From the entry, the stairs are there for visiting the others.

The upstairs neighbors visit

By descending them and knocking at our door

Or simply leaving the house altogether.

Inside, the kids scream for their way

Or plead for what it is they want for their own.

The mothers are quick to remind them that nothing
They see, feel, eat or breathe is theirs to own.

Inside, the water’s heating on the stove for a reason.

She stirs the spaghetti differently than she stirs the heavy soups

And differently than she stirs the thickening polenta.

Nothing is needed to stir the bath.

But the same pots are used to heat the water.

Outside, over the fence next door, Angela has hung

Her wash to dry on the line in the sun and in time

She tests the progress by walking the line,

Grasping the material

As it catches a breath of wind now and then.

Her technique is the same as it is with all first-foor

Tenement dwellers and when the clothes are dry to the touch,

A tug on the cloth relaxes the line

And the clothespins are pulled and placed in a pouch of cloth
Tied around her waist, there for the singular purpose of holding clothespins,
And the garments are released and are dropped by hand into a basket.

Unlike at our house, Angela has opted-out of the old

Interwoven straw form, in favor of the "New

And Improved" injection-molded plastic form of laundry basket

And although I see this as outside the neighborhood's character,

I admire her independent, forward-thinking attitude.

Inside, the local egg-man delivers a warm two dozen

Then climbs the stairs to the second floor.

He'll no doubt deliver another two dozen to Angela’s house,

The house just over the fence, connected to a pole by a clothesline.

                                                                       Quequechan