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On My Knees
- Northwestern University Press
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73 ON MY KNEES What you been up to? my crabby neighbor asks, idling, ogling, fat and lazy in the blessed shade. Down on your knees, looks like. Don’t tell me praying. Maybe it’s the scorching summer sun, or the sting of my blotched, stone-scarred knees, that makes me want to hurl a curt retort. So many things can bring us to our knees. Mopping the floor. A bout of love. Groping for a contact lens, or keeping baby happy, learning the art of the crawl, or crouched in a corner, hiding from a blow, hoping to escape on all fours. Not praying, I told him. Gardening. But digging down or upward is the same, I want to say. Clawing and pawing in a sweat of toil, asking the soil to yield us what we need, taking a beating from the summer’s blaze, our facile fingers damp, hot, greedy, and all the while entreating: Earth, bear with my hands that strafe your skin. Submit to fingering probes. We both know how our affair will end. You’ll open wide for me and hungrily, claiming much more than hands. You’ll want me whole. ...