Washing clothes may not seem like much,
but the phone call changed everything.  And the details
concerning what happened both during and after

have come to matter.  Why the soup was left hot on the stove-top,
though the burner itself was turned off.  What tension showed
on my unwashed face during the long wait.  How did

the afternoon turn into night?  How could I stop it?
The call changed everything:  Afternoon turned to night—
outside the room—then, morning brushed away the darkness.

The phone had rung, just as the dryer had sounded its beep,
at that exact moment when the wrinkles begin their pre-
formation or at least outline the plot for it.

But the story isn’t over.  No,
not yet.  As the hours went on, I re-washed the clothes,
put them away—all folded and dry—wrote a birthday song,

the words coming as quick as the sunshine.

Welcome to our world, the land of your new life,
where calls will stop the heart, afternoon turn into night,
where life and love are one, if you will make them so:

The land where babies take their time being born,
the land of twice-washed clothes, forgotten soup-pots.

first published in TMP Irregular