Perfect Time for a Poem - May 23, 2025

to fold laundry, one bends and

creases the cotton or its artificial

blends over itself into halves and thirds

sometimes halved and thirded again

this often allows the mind to idle

on a runway, poised for takeoff

except today I’m very aware

my husband always has more

shirts, shorts, socks and

underwear than I do

so I fume in sacrifice

then I think of mom doing years

of multiple loads of clothes

per day for dad and us 4 kids

who simply tossed the dirty ones

down a chute, which reappeared

clean in closets and drawers

oh, if only mom had been a writer

she could have written books of poems

or stories, airborne from the act of folding

where once I get this off my chest

I’ve got to point my plane

in a new direction

one that leaves laundry

back on the table

nicely half-folded