Susan Craig
Water
My husband’s soaking his summer sneakers
the ones we both thought were terribly cool
he’s weighted them down with the super-sized bottle of Lysol
from Sam’s I’d left sitting for years in the back
of the lowest laundry cabinet—O, I find this a hopeful thing
tan canvas turned dark as tannin, sunken and
surrendered in faint clinging bubbles like two willing hands—O
where once the brown plastic tub perched unabashed
on the Corian counter would have galled me—what
a glory I find now in this clutter
of thick sinking laces, insoles yellowed, bend of the soles
to accommodate the mercy
of water.
—Submitted on March 19, 2020
Susan Craig is a graphic designer in Columbia, S.C. Her poems have appeared in Kakalak, Mom Egg Review, The Collective I, Fall Lines, and Jasper, among other publications.
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