Wash Day
That year, I dropped off the washing on Mondays.
The owner, all business behind friendship
eyes, laundered our soiled linen. He could
not learn our secrets from the unbagged piles:
discords shifting like California’s
tectonic plates, rage enough to smash dishes,
break furniture to sticks. He made neat stacks,
then packaged and tied the clean, composed clothes.
Laundries still use that blue-tinted wrap, its
metallic hue like the sky just before
summer lightning, but I do my own
wash now; tote it out the back door in a
plaited basket. My clothing faces blue;
this sweeter life divulged yet closed, at home.