Oh these are getting harder and I'm getting them done later and later!
Today's prompt from Poetic Asides--
Today is our first "Two for Tuesday" prompt of the month. On these days, I offer two prompts. Don't worry: You don't need to write a poem for each prompt (but you're more than welcome to if you feel up to the challenge).
Prompt #1: I want you to write a clean poem. Take this however you wish. Clean language, clean subject matter, or cleaning the dishes. Of course, some twisted few will automatically link "cleaning" with hired hitmen. That's okay, as long as your poem is somehow linked to clean.
Prompt #2: I want you to write a dirty poem. Take all that stuff I wrote in the first prompt and twist it upside down. The opposite of clean is dirty; so, do what ya gotta do to produce a dirty poem. (Gosh, I hope this challenge doesn't get too messy as a result.)
Voices in the Laundry
Forgive us for being wrinkled,
faded, torn, inside-out and stained.
We feel better when we are on your body,
when we are neatly placed in a drawer.
You see, we forgive you for leaving us
in the bathroom (how many weeks?)
covered in a splotch of jam
or with wet edges, still damp on denim
capris from the day you waded in.
Shake us out. We like it.
Let us hang from a line, we’re tough
like that. There are no secrets
you can keep from us—blood
or sweat, we know when and where
before others. We are the first thing
you reach for when you step from the shower—
towel, towel, bathrobe.
And the last thing you put on (or take off)
before you go to bed.
I know you feel we’re killing the feminist
in you. The woman who believes she is more
than a basket of clothes, a history
from mother to daughter to daughter to daughter.
But we are your constant, your proof
that life does not have to be
difficult, but dryer-fresh.
And we like how you hold us,
your fingers folding our corners, straightening
the crease. Don’t see us as a burden,
but a meditation—this is what you wear,
what you are—but we know how sometimes
you despise us. We wish we could fold ourselves.
*
