Because my grandmother's hours <br />were apple cakes baking, <br />& dust motes gathering, <br />& linens yellowing <br />& seams and hems <br />inevitably unraveling <br />I almost never keep house <br />though really I like houses <br />& wish I had a clean one. <br /> <br />Because my mother's minutes <br />were sucked into the roar <br />of the vacuum cleaner, <br />because she waltzed with the washer-dryer <br />& tore her hair waiting for repairmen <br />I send out my laundry, <br />& live in a dusty house, <br />though really I like clean houses <br />as well as anyone. <br /> <br />I am woman enough <br />to love the kneading of bread <br />as much as the feel <br />of typewriter keys <br />under my fingers <br />springy, springy. <br />& the smell of clean laundry <br />& simmering soup <br />are almost as dear to me <br />as the smell of paper and ink. <br /> <br />I wish there were not a choice; <br />I wish I could be two women. <br />I wish the days could be longer. <br />But they are short. <br />So I write while <br />the dust piles up. <br /> <br />I sit at my typewriter <br />remembering my grandmother <br />& all my mothers, <br />& the minutes they lost <br />loving houses better than themselves <br />& the man I love cleans up the kitchen <br />grumbling only a little <br />because he knows <br />that after all these centuries <br />it is easier for him <br />than for me.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/woman-enough/
