Hanging Out the Wash

Hanging Out the Wash

All day, I hung the wash out, coat open, hat off,

no mittens. It seemed like spring as I splashed

the wet clothes on the line like paints. I painted you 

a picture of our lives, our bodies, our arms and legs

flapping, useless and empty of each other.

You say I shouldn't hang the wash

out, but I hang my sorrows in the sun

to thaw. It's so much warmer than yesterday

and feels like spring: thirty-five degrees but falling.

Yesterday was 20 below. I bend over coughing

and cannot stop. The cough sinks a taproot in my lungs

You say I shouldn't hang the wash out; want me 

perhaps, to scrub it on a washboard in the basement. 

Coughing and wheezing, I hang out your private shorts

all in a row. If you can say it, I can tell it.

I read that asthma is another way of crying, another way

of screaming. You say I'm allergic to you

and I am.

I take the frozen laundry from the line: stiff bras

and panties, solid jeans

shatter

and lie splintered on the snow.

My fingers crack

and fall off too.

They are my ten tongues,

punished for their honesty.

Mary Stebbins

061101b, original 1981 or earlier (find info)

From the Chapbook, Broken Mirrors

All day, I hung the wash out, coat open, hat off,

no mittens. It seemed like spring as I splashed

the wet clothes on the line like paints. I painted you 

a picture of our lives, our bodies, our arms and legs

flapping, useless and empty of each other.

You say I shouldn't hang the wash

out, but I hang my sorrows in the sun

to thaw. It's so much warmer than yesterday

and feels like spring: thirty-five degrees but falling.

Yesterday was 20 below. I bend over coughing

and cannot stop. The cough sinks a taproot in my lungs

You say I shouldn't hang the wash out; want me 

perhaps, to scrub it on a washboard in the basement. 

Coughing and wheezing, I hang out your private shorts

all in a row. If you can say it, I can tell it.

I read that asthma is another way of crying, another way

of screaming. You say I'm allergic to you

and I am.

I take the frozen laundry from the line: stiff bras

and panties, solid jeans

shatter

and lie splintered on the snow.

My fingers crack

and fall off too.

They are my ten tongues,

punished for their honesty.

Mary Stebbins

061101b, original 1981 or earlier (find info)

From the Chapbook, Broken Mirrors