On winter wash days, those on the cusp
of warmth, we hung out the clothes
with numb fingers, feeling the curtain
of clouds closing in.
Those were the days when the sun
often hid, and the cold never left at all.
Fabric froze hard, and dresses
and shirts grew solid and stiff.
Rows of sheets, towels and clothes
waved wildly, like pages of a book
flapping in the wind.
In late afternoon, we took it all down,
clothespins snapping shut as each piece
was pulled, placed in the wicker
basket and taken inside.
The darkness closed in early
those mid-winter days, the
evening star sometimes rising
before the icy moon.
ON WINTER WASH DAYS by Mary Kendall | Sandalwood & Vanilla Poetry Reed Diffuser
$20.00Price
Mary Kendall is an American poet living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her poetry blog, A Poet in Time, offers a twelve year collection of her writing. Her latest book is The Last Camellia, a carefully curated assortment of Japanese short form poetry: haiku, senryu, haiga, tanka and tanka art.
