1. I live in an age
of washing machines and dryers,
of labour-saving devices.

2. I have laundry to do, yes!

clothes to wear, and a closet
to store my twenty-eight shirts,
a drawer in which to place
my seven folded pairs of trousers.

3. I need not go to a laundromat.
The washers and dryers are in my building,
some thirty or forty metres down the hall.

4. I am capable, mentally and physically,
of doing my laundry: neither disabled
nor senile, yet.

5. It really is easy once I start.
But starting is the thing. Sorting and starting.
And there is the blossoming of order,
the grace of cleanness, that occurs
when the ideally-weekly task
approaches its temporary completion.