Dishes

I wash my dinner dishes with my hands
Thoughts stuck like dried sauce, glazed
across my mind, wait to be scrubbed and released;
sent swaying down the sink drain
of the universe infinite.
My mother and father taught me to be dilligent
with my chores, yes, and through them
everything else.
I choose to wash my dinner dishes with my hands
Not because it is faster,
Nor because I clean more thoroughly than machine,
Nor because it wastes less water, less energy,
but because the intention cleans the muck of my frustrations
pains
sorrows
and leaves my utensils, all, free to use
again.