Wash a poem by Nina Quigley

WASH
When I go downstairs you’re standing at the sink wrestling an unruly yellow plastic basin
that keeps bobbing up, sticking it’s face over the neatly dumped, sausage-like,
foetus-like twists of wrung-out clothes on the stainless steel draining board
that are crowding out the blue china willow pattern mugs tilted, hugging the rim
and the handleless delph cutlery jug with a shy teaspoon inside skulking low
and a lofty fork riding high. You’re wearing black on black and dark blue slippers
trodden down at the heels, and you’re washing, slow and systematic, a washing machine
for blue-checked cotton short-sleeved shirts, drab-green t-shirts and navy blue socks,
being rough-handled and snow-boarded
in a miasma of biodegradable. When the kettle erupts
into readiness, I wet my tea, turn my back
on all this damp industry and go back to bed.
(Nina Quigley)
Extract from New Ulster Magazine, August, 2020
Kettle Image: (Image. Attribute: User:Ragesoss / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
This section: stories and poems, Writing
Filed under: stories and poems, Writing
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