Housewife   The housewife’s body baby- sits wet condiments.   She is soft, dimpled, and lolling about barefoot. She wears a loose tooth of a dress.   She considers the refrigerator’s width one part hush, one part embalmment.   She sits stricken with instruments: a phone sometimes, or the sponge used to wipe stickiness from the light switch.   The housewife warms the coins in her apron pocket;   often she goes soft inside, secretly counting herself among the pats of butter. Sarah J. Sloat Sarah J. Sloat is a cook, a poet, a lawnmower, a washer woman, a news editor, a dog walker, a cleaning lady, a bookkeeper and a killer of mosquitos. She blogs at http://theraininmypurse.blogspot.com.