Laundry

Laundry

Who doesn’t dream of being dead? To press
the lungs of oxygen and breathe in dirt,
to give the weathered skin and wrinkled shirt
back to the dust from which they came (unless
the Bible lied, which it’s been known to do).
What peaceful cloth we’d make there! Ripening,
untroubled food for moss, bones whitening
like linens bleached until the thread rings true—
Instead, I wake and dress. My arms hang gauntly
in their sleeves, want nothing of the day:
no trudge, no torture slow behind the wheel
of expectation, no false words to say.
The place you slept still smells like chamomile—
I'd rather kill myself than do the laundry.

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