You age and dye clothes the actors
wear, and when the old thing breaks,
we talk a washing machine between us.
I hold company money– someone else’s
wealth– without knowledge or specialty.
You say the replacement must not have
sensors. And you must be able to
manipulate the water level. These, you say,
are the only requirements. Everything
else can be jazz. Copper chords I
know. I riff on melodies in my head.
Soon the machine will have to be
unhooked, and I know little
useful of hoses, washers, inlets,
pumps. If it were just about
water– and shapelessness–
I could close my eyes
and submerge. But
it’s about spin, the pirouette
inside that makes it work
after the basin fills with
soil and sweat, a
pool of clean chemicals
and dead things all
scrunched together–
close the lid to hear
its tender agitations
before its heartbeats
turn frantic. The cyclone
within gathers wind of
frantic thoughts that
entertain the idea of
waking one morning,
fresh off a sharp night-
before fight in the kitchen,
and ripping all clothes
off hangers to jam
in a suitcase so that
when you wake, too,
you’d see my clothes
as a hole where they used
to hang and you’d ask
what are you
doing / what are you
doing? and I swim
up to the closed lid,
telling the world
th-thump, th-thump,
my fingers prying
and pulling.

(originally published in WordCity, Spring 2023)