Poetry: “Women’s Work” by Nancy Cook

1.

She is standing at the sink, pale green

rubber gloves up to her elbows. Outside

the window the sun hides behind the trees

and the lone homestead fox scuttles across

the frozen backyard shallows. The one

standing at the sink loves this scene

but she longs for the warmth of longer

days, her hands impatient to burrow in dirt

instead of sudsy water, to bury pumpkin

and sweet potato seeds, stake tomato

plants and trellis the beans, arrange

geraniums and marigolds in fine order.

 

But she finishes washing the dishes, and

after, kneads her chapped hands with palm oil

the fragrance of hibiscus, his favorite. She

massages her husband’s shoulders while he

catches her up on the news, the latest on NPR,

in the New York Times, edited down to essentials.

By the time he gets to sports and local updates

he is so ready to enter her, she can sense it,

and she is agreeable, she will satisfy his longing.

Later, she waits for him to drift off. She retreats

to the living room, there to watch the movies

she loves, with strong female leads, or foreign

films, subtitled, an elegant glass of merlot close

at hand, bare feet tucked beneath her thighs.

 

2.

She keeps a volume of Anna Ahkmatova’s

collected works in her bedside table drawer.

Her husband asked her once, “Do you like best

Ahkmatova’s early passionate love poems or

her later passionate political poems?” “Yes,”

she’d answered. Today he glances at his i-pad,

says “Oscar nominations are out.”  An odd

figure, this Oscar, androgynously slim

and featureless, gold gloss, a long crusader’s

sword concealing masculine parts, if any.

(How fortunate, as winners are prone

to grasp the statuette with such ferocious

enthusiasm just there.) Ninety-two years old,

the coveted little man. Largely unchanged.

 

And this year, the nominees are…

Wars, mobsters, muscle cars, Hitler youth,

sociopath clowns, bloodsport-style divorce,

drugs, sex, and murder, family, greed, and

murder, and oh yes, Little Women. Based

on the book written by a woman. Movie directed

by a woman. A woman not nominated for best

director. As no woman was nominated for best

director. What is it Ahkmatova wrote? “Who will

grieve for this woman? Does she not seem

too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart

I never will deny her.” I never will deny her.

 

3.

In the old study where the fireplace

still crackles every winter with the blaze

of burning oak and ash, each has a writing desk.

His and hers. Although it is Friday evening,

she is seated at her computer, typing.

He adds a log to the fire, glides up behind her,

asks what she is working on. They’ve agreed

weekends are for home and leisure.

“I’m writing to your daughter. Tomorrow

is their seventh anniversary.” “Really?” he says.

“I’d forgotten.” He settles in a comfy chair

at hearthside, picks up his tablet, resumes

a crossword puzzle started earlier. “Speaking

of anniversaries,” he says, “tomorrow

is the fourth annual women’s march.” “Yes,

I know,” she says. Back in 2017, they’d talked

of driving down to D.C., but in the end had stayed

in Nashua and watched on television as streets

across the country filled with (mostly) women

voicing opposition to the new president.

 

A giant blown-up photograph of that day

is on display at the National Archives, official

keeper of America’s history. The photograph,

however, has been doctored. The protest signs

in demonstrators’ hands are changed:

any reference to female anatomy removed,

all mention of Trump expunged. The whole thing

depoliticized. Ironic. So this is how history

gets revised, one erasure at a time. And yet,

haven’t women made strides? Barely

one hundred years ago, they couldn’t even vote.

And now, just this week, Virginia ratified

the ERA, the final state to do so, guaranteeing,

with constitutional fiat, women’s equal rights.

 

4.

There’s still work to do. The Justice

Department proclaims the days of burning

bras are long past, the ERA is dead,

the proposed constitutional amendment

having expired. “Any interest in a road trip?”

She looks up from the laundry she is sorting.

She’s interested, no matter the destination.

But she asks, “What do you have in mind?”

“An exhibit in the city. A collection of artifacts,

women’s work in science, architecture,

trade; as artists, printers, undertakers. Also

writers, naturalists and midwives, et cetera.”

Her eyes grow animated, the laundry is forgotten.

“When can we leave?” On the train, she reads

about the woman curating the collection,

her quest to find and safeguard evidence

of women’s independence. Two hundred

of her best finds make up the display called

“Five Hundred Years of Women’s Work.”

 

She recalls that decades ago,

as a graduate student, before marriage

or a career, she read a book entitled

“Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years.”

Now she wonders what has happened

to those other 19,500 years, she wonders

where all the years have gone.

Nancy Cook is a writer and teaching artist currently living in St. Paul. She serves as flash fiction editor for Kallisto Gaia Press and also runs “The Witness Project,” a program of free community writing workshops in Minneapolis designed to enable creative work by underrepresented voices. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she has been awarded grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the National Parks Arts Foundation, the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota Humanities Center, and Integrity Arts and Culture. In 2019 she served as International Artist in Residence at Artsland, County Tyrone, in Northern Ireland, and has also held residencies at Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, Kingsbrae Gardens, and at the former Fergus Falls State Hospital in western Minnesota. She is particularly interested in exploring the intersections of geography, history, and cultural heritage in her work. More about her can be found at NancyLCook.com.

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