Soapstone Sink

There's an old soapstone sink in my basement. Double-basin. Each side twenty-one inches wide and fourteen inches deep. Chipped here and there, like the concrete basement floor, which is webbed with cracks and protestations.

My basement. Full of cobwebs in the old ceiling joists where new electric frowns upon the old knob and tube; a foundation of antique bricks decaying in white flakes onto the floor.

My basement. Several rooms with old doors of scrap wood nailed roughly together, doors that, when shut, don't completely fill the frame, leaving, instead, a two-inch gap of darkness and possibilities: The old coal room with a rectangular cast iron coal-chute, now sealed shut. The room that houses the incinerator—a behemoth of scrap metal that sits, unused, obviously—waiting for a future unknown while the gas boiler in the main room—another giant—keeps my house somewhat warm. Also in that main room, a dance platform, one wall lined with mirrors where someone must have practiced ballet and dreamed of being onstage. A fourth room houses the electric box and a set of wooden shelves, where, if I ever cleaned them up, I could set jars of my homemade jelly.


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Signs of Snow

I do not know how long my daughter has been driving around on a flattish tire.

Neither does she.

Neither, in fact, does my husband, who, in denial of the sad, sagging evidence before him, declared the tire gauge to be broken.

Today is the day: Monday, mother of all get things done days, the day of fresh to-do lists, lists full of intention and promise and hope. Today, I get my daughter's tire fixed.

I step outside and work the ice from the windshield, glancing nervously at the tire, wondering if it will be able to limp the half mile into town. I drive slowly, holding up traffic and occasionally driving down the center of the road to avoid the potholes that gather at the street's edges. At the repair shop, I hand the keys over to the woman behind the desk and head home on foot.

My breath comes in thick puffs as I walk, gloved hands jammed into my coat pockets. Everywhere I look, fallen autumn leaves are edged in frost.

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