A Poem About Laundry

Wrote this one a ways back....

Canticle for 2:35 P.M.

The laundry pile is no more:
every sport bra stuffed
into a drawer, every pink panty
lined up crotch-to-crotch
in cottony majesty 
and I will fling the plastic basket,
fling it down! fling it down
the basement stairs!
and sing now by the
iron’s hot glow -

"This wash is done,
this wash is done,
and Hallelujah,
this wash is done!”

I have struck a broken pose,
my hands repeating timeless gestures, 
wrestling fitted sheets,
snapping T-shirts into unwrinkled
excellence, turning one last pair
of blue jeans outside-in, but
wasting not one second more
trying to match the unmatched sock,
save the unmatched sock found
skulking in a cuff; I will sacrifice
this leg garment and for once
I follow through, god dammit,
for once I ball it up and trash it,
trash the lone stocking that stands
empty-footed between me
and my warm cup of Darjeeling.

Now here is the moment.

The empty hamper moment,
the before-the-next-work-shirt,
peed-my-pants, 
the-cat-puked-on-the-bed moment; 
I am your faithful servant in this moment, 
this sock-searching wife released from
downy hell, Oh God -

this moment of pure pleasure,
this perfect Eden moment,
this hour before the first fig leaf 
was plucked and pressed, 
and placed just so.

Photo

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