So much goes through one's mind while washing the dishes, the steady rush of warm water, the grease sliding into clean.  I am remembering a poem by one of Katie's colleagues, I think it was Tiffany Promise, read at a Sprawl two years ago, about washing dishes.  Descending into the sink with them until the water runs clear. So good!

I had been toying with the idea of writing poems about housework.  The question of - has it been done, does that devalue the project - or the singular idea of a dishwashing poem?  Or are there never any new ideas, just reformulations and new combinations of the old?  I took Harryette Mullen's Recyclopedia off the shelf to look for housework poems.  Here's one:

"Hide the face.  Chase dirt with an ugly stick.  That sinking sensation, a sponge dive.  Brush off scum on some well scrubbed mission.  It's slick to admit, motherwit and grit ain't groceries." (Mullens, p. 95)

She read at the Les Figues BBQ and I felt so stupidly shy for not telling her how much I enjoyed her work.  I got weirdly starstruck, as I sometimes do.

I suppose all of this writing around the dishes is not doing the dishes, and the dishes won't do themselves.

 But I am also interested in this idea of ownership of ideas.  An old friend contacted me this morning about my use of the five-part structure, apparently he is also writing a five-part book, and feels thus that I should not.

However, there are only so many numbers under seven - at which point you've got an epic tome on your hands, might as well just call them chapters and call it a day.  I feel that whatever we do around the structure, the ivy wrapping around the frame, will be vastly different.