what sets us apart

"It is simply washing one's clean linen in public." - Oscar Wilde

Yesterday’s laundry is to be taken down:

Two blouses – both Mother’s.

Trousers, inside-out,

Father’s shirts held across bamboo by the collar.

Sports-shorts, laces (two pairs, tied),

underwear of different sizes. A towel.

The house is quiet. I release each item, squeeze

pant-legs for hint of dampness. Here, frequent habits –

work-shirts and skirts – rank along the fresh additions.

Old cloth is stiff from the sun’s dry work, a map

of wrinkles long-set, while pegs easily mark

recent purchases: crepe and corduroy

for the coming New Year. Folded, the clothes

double in bulk and height, as piles on the dinner-table

form. Taste and colour tell the stacks apart.

The checks are Father’s; these stripes, mine.

I bring the careful sets upstairs, return them

to our respective rooms. What remains now is to hoist,

again, a new, wet weight to their vacated perch.

Smallest items inside, a neat, white row,

followed by ties, towels, tees. Heavy shirts last,

shoulder-to-shoulder, against the sunlit window.  

Closer to noon these will be lifted out, and made

to break the shadow of the block. But for now this

is what family means: to know which seams

are broken, and which ties worn. To feel, each morning,

for last night’s rain. To trust the clean, strong sun.

(laundry; theophilus kwek)