Faucet

by Joyce Compton Brown

It’s always been that way with water,
            something going wrong,
                        complicating the endless tasks
of washing dishes    cooking     keeping clean.

Our old faucet fell off,
            its plastic part, built
                        for easy destruction,
landed with a soft plop.

Our new faucet
            is tall and curved,
                        smooth and promising
in its brushed chrome beauty.

My mother kept our water
             on the porch,
                        in two white red-rimmed buckets,
a dipper always within reach.

My brother’s task
            was to keep the two
                         filled from the backyard well.
That was easy—dip the wooden bucket,

pour the pure cold chill
            into enameled metal,
                        listen to its song.
Not like the old place, where she’d

clambered down a muddy
            bank to bring up water
                        in battered buckets—
their thin-wire handles digging into skin.

It must have been a salvation of sorts—
            step outside,
                        drop a bucket, water
for the beans she was cooking,

water for thirsty kids,
            water for washtub baths.
                        I remember the tub hanging
on the house side, outside the kitchen,

what it meant,
            the folded up child body-bath,
                        the scrubbing of shirts
against ridged metal.

What labor water commands!
            I have seen women balance
                             tall jugs on slim necks,
vertebrae sinking deeper day by day—

I’ve seen it delivered in wagons, to refugees
            camped in deserts—
                                    channeled through lead pipes
which eat away the brains of  children.

I’ve seen the white-robed baptizers,
            the total trust
                              required for immersion.
I think of the woman at Jacob’s well.

Is a dry throat
            moistened with words?
                        When He offered the Water
of Life, did she drink from the cup?

::

Joyce Compton Brown comes from a western piedmont North Carolina family with deep agrarian roots. After attending Appalachian State University and the University of Southern Mississippi, she taught at Gardner-Webb University. She maintains a lifelong interest in Southern culture and roots music. She plays the banjo not well but with pleasure and enjoys painting and drawing. Her husband, Les, two daughters, and the cat fill the spaces in her life not taken up with writing. Her four books of poetry are Bequest (Finishing Line), Singing with Jarred Edges (Main St. Rag), Standing on the Outcrop (RedHawk), and Hard-Packed Clay (RedHawk).

Image: Nathan Dumlao

Image description: photograph of hands being washed under clear, running water.