I wake and the day is tired already.
The air’s corners yellow and curl
where ghosts of laughs linger in the grey hallway.
My sacred ritual – coffee, cigarette,
cigarette, coffee— is performed
too quickly.
The empty hours scare me
so I gather my clothes, soft and worn
as a rabbit’s foot, and roll them into
a rock- something to burden
me.
My washing machine sings
in a long, low note,
droning like company.
Perhaps I will sing back.
The drying rack murmurs solidly
with creaks and sighs. I ask him
if he minds that sock there
or the weight of my wet jeans.
He replies that the strain of my loneliness kills him.
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Submission Name: Hanging Laundry (revised)
