Wash and Dry
We don’t have a washer in our home,
we don’t have a dryer here.
So we wash our clothes at granma’s white house
in the morning outside the city where the grass is clean.
The grass is clean and there ain’t any bent cans, or
crushed camel packs.
There ain’t no concrete to crack, crack to buy.
Granma just buys flowers she put in all her windows while
she watch the neighborhood kids play.
It smells like cinnamon and the carpet is thick.
And when I take off my shoes I move my feet like I’m
walkin on water like Jesus.
My mama ignores me,
carrying in the baskets and disappears behind the door
to the washer and dryer while granma clicks her tongue.
“Gal, are you hungry?” she ask. I say only a little bit,
watchin her as she brings out the skillet with some
bacon and eggs, listenin for mama and the door.
I hear mama stuffing the laundry as the bacon sizzles,
her sigh, the baskets sliding across the floor and I
can see the shadows moving fast like she’s dancin.
She never let me come in to help her,
granma never let me either.
“Let her alone, she can do it herself.”
Mama comes out sometimes
to fix her something to eat, openin the cabinets
softly so the hinges don’t creak.
She sends me into the laundry room to watch
the washer and dryer shake while she eats.
Mama always stuffs the washer and dryer so that
they thump, thump.
The washer and dryer thump thump so loud
you almost can’t hear them when they
argue, trying to keep everything that’s inside of them
from tumbling out.
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