Laundry Life

Laundry load number three was calling me from
Way down low.
Agitated for over a half hour,
Whirring our wearing life clean,
It stopped.
A silent signal for me to come back down
To visit again and change it out
Wet-wrung and cold
For another load of worn life.

I obey, not always on time
Sometimes weeks behind
Piled high to empty drawers and jeans
Reworn for the sixth time
In seven days.
I obey.

So down, down I go, to my basement calling
And I hear from above me
Slow, rolling, rattling increasing
Crying notching up deeper lungs
Vibrating screaming stair gate
Shaking, screeching and pulsing.
The entire time.
The entire seven minutes it takes
To change out.
To reload.
To fold.
To reappear.

He was there, 21 months hovering
Top of fuming stairs red face nostrils flaring
Heaving eyes wet angry and shrilling
Waiting, wailing until

I reached him.
Pulled him in.
Whispered in his ear.
Held him until he shrieked his last shriek.
Until his
Shriek shrunk to a muffled
Sniffling, teary, breath-catching
Sigh.
All better.

He looked at me and I looked at him.
That very moment.

That very, very moment I knew
He told me
Made me understand
What I never understood.

That
When he looks at me, that way,

That
I know, and he knows,

No one will ever cry for me
The way
He does. The way,
my children do.

No one will ever miss me
For seven minutes straight
While I disappear
Then reappear
The way
He misses me. The way,
my children do.

Maybe one gray day.
People will cry for me.
Or cry for my children over
What will never be again.

Maybe one gray day.
I will cry for me.
Or cry for my children over
What will never be again.

But in this year of my laundry life

Never will I be needed,
Needed for my love
For my simple warmth or to see my eyes
Finding theirs
The way
He needs me. The way,
my children do.