Poem of the Week, by Ted Kooser

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A Washing of Hands

- Ted Kooser

She turned on the tap and a silver braid

unraveled over her fingers.

She cupped them, weighing that tassel,

first in one hand and then the other,

then pinched through the threads

as if searching for something, perhaps

an entangled cocklebur of water,

or the seed of a lake. A time or two

she took the tassel in both hands,

squeezed it into a knot, wrung out

the cold and the light, and then, at the end,

pulled down hard on it twice,

as if the water were a rope and she was

ringing a bell to call me, two bright rings,

though I was there.

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For more information on Ted Kooser, please click here: http://tedkooser.net/

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