Category: Guest Authors

recreate from these faults
and fears, fitter selves,
as lean years follow fat
from “Into a Rightness” by Teju Cole

Don’t get me wrong: I do believe
in elves. Just not the laundry-thieving
kind. The kind for which I’ve seen

the evidence with my own eyes, the ones
that live behind the laptop screen,
those whose existence is the busy

tailoring of the fabric of reality.
Virtual, that is. The ones they
call the -bots that wake each other

up to watch the moment I sign in,
who register each mouse-click, each
virtual location that I visit, who

read the poems as I’m typing them
and offer ads to fit. Once, I’d
considered ad-blocker, virtual

exterminator…but no more. Instead,
I am amused by their vigilance,
tenacity, perceptions, by the way

they work and the advertisements
that they show me. I do not click
to visit any of the ads or sites

suggested, but take time to appreciate
the talent evident in the selections.
Yesterday, comparing tables, laws,

and tax-charts. Two windows open:
2017 calculation for what portion
of social security is taxable. 2018

tax law bill to puzzle over the new
tables. I go a long time without
pressing any keyboard keys at all,

working the numbers on the calculator
trying to find any way to make
the money reach. I sigh, then bump

the mouse to wake up the screen
in time to catch a quarter-page ad
that’s sprung full-size from some

god’s forehead: the elves suggest:
RETIRE IN HONDURAS!
I start to laugh and cannot stop,

then stand up in full salute. Indeed,
my elvish friends. Bravo! Indeed.
So lately I’ve been writing all these

poems about laundry. And the elves
are tearing strips from the fabric
of the universe and stitching them

together into the world of my dreams:
this morning, seven advertisements
for multi-packs of socks, an article picked

for me to read on ten ways to clean
my washer and dryer (THIS LIFE HACK
WORKS BETTER THAN BLEACH!),

a local mechanic’s business card,
an advertisement for a yard sale.
Then more socks, and green detergents,

then more socks. And yes, you know.
Amen to this personal quilting
of the internet today, this tailored

vision of the world that I live in.
No more advertisements for cruises,
retirement communities, luxury SUVs.

No more airfare-deals, no more
ask-your-doc-if-THIS-(side-effect-
riddled)-medication-is-right-for-you.

No more ads for fitness programs, no
more miracle solutions, no more kale,
turmeric, and vinegar. Amen.

As in real-space, so in cyber. Live
on, small elves, keep tailoring, reminding
me that I can really

change the world
around me with no more than
words and washing.

Oh what charming ruins
the inhabitants must be—
snaggletoothed and ravaged
from “Provincial” by Dave Bonta

A bloodied sock, a nail-hole punched
through the sole of it. Mister
Cottonwood, please leave it here
with me. While you are away dancing
two days earlier than your doctor
recommends upon that foot you injured

sweeping up after the job at Mrs.
Blattner’s, I’d like to take that
sock and throw it, with its mate
(still whole but worn thin at heel
and toe), into the laundry. It is
a myth that there are elves that

live invisibly behind the scenes
in every laundry room. They’ve never
been in mine. (Perhaps they do exist
in other people’s dryers, that is not
for me to say…I can only speak
to the error of saying “every”.)

But here in this laundry room, there
are several piles of socks:

• socks that are half of a pair, where
  they and their partners were separated
  in the hamper, and went through the wash
  in different loads (they are waiting)
• socks that are widowed, their partners
  worn through, no longer strong enough
  to serve as barrier between tender
  foot-soles and tough footwear (they are
  waiting too, to be matched to another
  like them, similar in style and purpose,
  waiting to be re-paired)
• socks that have fulfilled the purpose
  of their life as socks and can serve
  no further in that role (they are
  not to be discarded, they are waiting
  for some purpose they may serve).
  See, Mister Cottonwood? Your puncture
  will be washed, then will reside here.

A makeshift glove to cover the hand
that wipes fresh creek-mud off
the puppy’s feet? A soft lint-free cloth
for applying hoof-care liniment
to the pastured horse? A clean layer
between the bag of frozen peas-and-
carrots and the skin to prevent frost-
biting when an inconvenient twist

of the wrist has happened that needs
some short-term icing? A gathering
of several members of this sock-pile
community to be entrusted, one atop
the other, to protect the outdoor
spigots in the hardest part of winter?
A mini-mop for the kitchen floor when
the salsa’s boiling becomes exuberant?

Reincarnation happens here, Mister
Cottonwood. Do not discard any
candidates. All may be re-purposed.

In response to “Mrs. Blattner’s Window” by Joe Cottonwood, title a nod to Emma Lazarus.

trust us. we are mechanics
of the first degree
from “our name is mike” by j.lewis

The kitchen sink: eight cubic
feet, two each way by two feet
deep, with two outdoor spigots
set into its steel back-wall
well above the highest water
level possible. Steel splash-
guard protecting the wall
on the right side, a bright

overhanging sconce light,
and the counter on the left
side rolls away, leaving plenty
of room for rag-towels
to protect the floor. Kitchen
sink that, like most of us,
has to serve more than one
purpose to earn the floor-space
it takes up. Double-duty.

Heavy duty. Because that
machine whose job it is
to do the washing comes with
permanent disclaimers, warning
labels that proclaim:

No washer can completely
remove oil. Do not dry anything
that has ever had any type
of oil on it. Le non-respect
de ces instructions peut causer
la muerte, un explosion, o
incendio.

Check. I have a thought, dismiss
it with a slight regret. Recite
one hundred times: I will not
write to Maytag asking what they
mean, “do not dry anything….”

I am envisioning asking if
a thing has been so unlucky as
to have actually had oil on it,
how is one to keep it from
eventually drying out all by
itself? And when it does, are
they seriously warning me

that it will be like in
secondary school, in chemistry,
when we thought it would be
interesting to extract
the phosphorus from its safe-place
underwater in a jar and leave
it on the steel counter?
(That was interesting indeed.)

I am envisioning an attic
filled with two-gallon
pickle jars, greasy shirts
and jeans, all safely soaking
to keep them from exploding,
an occasional embroidered
name patch pressed sad and wet
against the inside of the glass.

Wisdom from some desert father
offered up by Thomas Merton:
It is not because evil thoughts
come to us that we are condemned,
but only because we make use
of the evil thoughts. I complete
my hundred recitations of this
reassurance while I gather up
all the dangerously greasy

laundry. Gasoline and avgas,
solvent, tractor fluid, diesel…
and for balance, one pale green
fine linen dishtowel that got too
friendly with manual spray pump
used for squirting olive oil. It all
goes in the waiting sink.

This isn’t the kind of sink that’s
lined up on a window with a view.
This is a sink that gets right
down to business, and when
the hot spigot runs for just
six seconds, the steam would
make a window useless anyway.

I begin the layering:
the jeans and shirts, the worst
of the grease spots pointed
up. Then I tear off the card-
board top of a small box
of cornstarch and distribute
the fine powder fairly evenly,
making sure to not miss any
places thick with grease.

Then I pour in two litres
of soda (don’t believe anyone
who tells you it has to be
brand Coca-Cola, any cheap
generic carbonated containing
citric acid does just fine).
Then a cup of hand-wash
dishsoap. Then hot water.

Final layer is the rack
from an old Weber to hold
the clothes beneath
the surface of the steaming
murky stew. Turn on the vent
fan. DO NOT forget this.
Walk away. Come back
two hours later when it no
longer looks so angry, use
tongs to lift the grill
and pull the plug. Rinse.
Rinse. Rinse. Rinse. Rinse.

Then wash as usual.
Tumble dry low.

Read the whole series of laundry poems.

You have kept your treasures
sewn into your hemlines
Kristen Berkey-Abbott, Exercising Freedom

The 80-pound puppy’s been
following me from room
to room
licking the outer
seam of my jeans
just above the knee.
As the means of his investigation
slowly soaks in against
my thigh, I stop
to give him my attention
and thoughtfully consider
what exactly
he is doing.

He is not yet a full year
old, and doesn’t have a grasp
of personal space
or boundaries. (As far as
he’s concerned, we’d all do better
in this world if we stayed
glued together
at the hip.) And so, with no
inhibitions, he’s been reading
my diary, the moments
of my personal history
left out in the open
when I rinsed my hands too
briefly in the sink, then
wiped them on my jeans.

He’s reading cumin
and cilantro, pepper-bean-tomato-
and-zucchini tacos. He’s
been reading and, as young
readers do, letting what he’s reading
transport him
into an imaginary place
where dogs not only are
permitted in the kitchen, but
get to share in meals
prepared there, maybe even
their own chairs right
at the table.

Or maybe not. Perhaps
something gets lost in translation.
But, to facilitate moving
more easily through the day
I go ahead and wash
my hands again and change.

And now it’s time to tend
to laundry, and as I take each
item out of the hamper, turn
the pockets, I begin to look
at each more closely. (The puppy’s
right beside me, delighted
to be teaching this old
dog new tricks.) Together,
we examine closely a plaid shirt
my husband wore while working
on the neighbor’s barbed wire
fencing. It’s black-and-red-
and-gray plaid flannel,

not one to show much
surface evidence, but puppy
sniffs insistently at the cuff,
and so I stop and sit
down on the floor
to look more closely.

The family that reads together…
Never mind. What is this darker
stain that wasn’t there before?
It appears in splotches, something
that was wet and spread, then
dried. And here, a tear
along the sleeve I hadn’t seen.
Perhaps dried blood? The mister
has not said anything to me
about getting any injuries. We turn
the page, set that one into
the washer and extract the next:
an olive green bandana, one of those
he takes with him as handkerchiefs.

This has a dark patch on it
and tight creases, like a tie-dye
project, and puppy tastes
it briefly and whines a tiny
bit and turns his head away.
This one’s still a bit damp from
something and I sniff it, catch
the briefest whiff: steel? spinach?
iron? blood. Barbed-wire fencing.
A snag, a bleeding gash,
a staunching. A wound hidden,
left unmentioned. So here’s me:

sitting on the washroom floor,
also reading someone’s diary,
noticing things I’d never really
noticed about laundry. My old
jacket smells like
incense and french fries now.

We keep reading the news.

Closing lines are from “The Monotony of Ice” by James Brush. Read all the laundry poems here.