Clothes on the Line
Eve evening, Eve day, Eve
Wondering if Mid-Summer
Night’s Eve is a good day
to plant a garden – we’ll see.
Clothes freshly washed, wanting
pins to hold them to the line
(or so says the speaker’s voice),
“conditions” requiring the use of
a dryer, which brings along this
Lament for yet another moment
of procrastination, inertia, and
who am I to not find everything
more (or less) important, until damp
aromatic clothes in hand make legs
want to walk right out the back door
and drape in an unwinding path
Clothes on the line, from wet to dry,
how they hang, waft, and fly, found
with the smell of the sun burned into
every stitch and pore. Maybe next time.
--Michael Knisely
