of hand-crocheted doilies ordained for China

( after e.e. cummings )


of hand-crocheted doilies ordained for China or Romania,
the ladies of Lowell cluck and croon with slight of hand,
 flurrying needles, clicking their skeins of dyed wool yarn,
are worn wing chairs with threadbare cushions, and are
sure of themselves in their love of Jesus, Eleanor, and the
war orphans, they wear pancake and sensible shoes and
read the classics between services, and gossip as they
bandy their quick glances, of a particular reverend and his
secretary, but all is right among these righteous Daughters
of the Mayflower and the church, where plans for the next
fund-raiser is met with geese going on about flour-less cake
and peanut brittle, with arms upraised, if only the sugar
would come down to them as manna from heaven, which
presently is the only place imagined in these times of ration.




#eecummings