ELEANOR ROSS TAYLOR

Unemployed

All that little soldiering
  she’d been doing—
tomato soup, back rubbing,
  foot slogging . . . 
She laid down her arms,
  laid down her body,
in her own bed,
  let her eyes glaze on the window
as the cicada sang.
  It sang, What though,
stopped, laughed.
  Sang, stopped. Then laughed again.
The sun whitened the window.  

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   Contributor’s notes

   Fifteen Poems and Drafts Introduction
   In Celebration of Eleanor Ross Taylor