Dirty Laundry
There are dollars to be saved, and coins, well quarters. Once the drawers are free from their very last pair of clean socks, and I reluctantly pull on a pair that is not so new, I sort through the laundry. Not in the same piles that my mother makes. My piles are without color or material prejudice - simply need now. All in a heap the underpants, the socks, bras, gym pants, work pants all that four quarters will buy me.
The coin slot the left of the machine has a title in metallic silver and red. I give the machine a fourth cup of tide and the quarters in the “Vertical 8!” in exchange for something clean.
Because 8 is too many for any one load, even if it is socks and underwear, and the apartment is already so hot, everything comes wet upstairs with me. It spreads over my space: the drying rack, the chair backs, door knobs, hangers over the fan blades, the bathroom towel bar and the shower curtain rods.
The bathroom is small. All the wet socks hang lame on the rod and reach down to me. I can feel them pulling the heat from my skin. Sucking at my heart’s beat to dry their cotton entireties.
They aren't made new in the wash, just less soiled.
The coin slot the left of the machine has a title in metallic silver and red. I give the machine a fourth cup of tide and the quarters in the “Vertical 8!” in exchange for something clean.
Because 8 is too many for any one load, even if it is socks and underwear, and the apartment is already so hot, everything comes wet upstairs with me. It spreads over my space: the drying rack, the chair backs, door knobs, hangers over the fan blades, the bathroom towel bar and the shower curtain rods.
The bathroom is small. All the wet socks hang lame on the rod and reach down to me. I can feel them pulling the heat from my skin. Sucking at my heart’s beat to dry their cotton entireties.
They aren't made new in the wash, just less soiled.