MARGARET GIBSON

Tasks
     The task of a human being is to transform suffering to joy.
          —Tibetan master

And always along the way, there’s housework.
Forget the computer, the checkbook,
the inscrutable repair of whatever
overheats or squeaks or ices over.
Never mind the wooden lamppost, rotten,
fallen on its face like a corpse in the wet grass,
which needs to be cut. Your allotted
jobs are to dust, fold the laundry, tasks
in which you take such unsung pleasure
I’m abashed. I’m sorting cutlery; I’m Job
in a bathrobe, wondering where oh where
in the wrong drawer you put it. “We’ll make
a good wife of you yet,” I nearly joke.
But look at you: so happy, I bite my tongue.