The Laying-On of Hands

Sept 29 2019

The machine's comforting rumble

and almost animal warmth.

Palms pressed

to its sheet metal skin

as it steadily tumbles dry.

The white enamel surface

that is normally cold as the basement

and its bare concrete floor.

Where it sits in an orphaned corner,

a standard appliance

inert and compliant

and permanently on-call.

On a dull damp day

when the machine is set to high,

and all I wish

is to cocoon myself inside.

Its throaty hum

to calm my racing thoughts,

it radiant heat

infusing me down to the marrow,

the healing massage

of its unhurried drum

as it turns and turns again,

evenly circling

in the most perfect of all the shapes.

The sweetly delicate scent

of cotton, denim, muslin

hot and freshly fluffed.

And with a poofy puff of dust,

dryer lint

peeling cleanly off

the fine mesh screen,

its baby-bottom softness

and multicoloured fuzz.

Laundry

hung on the line

comes out bleached and dry

in the sun's desiccating heat,

sanitized

and smelling of pastoral freshness.

But the line sags in the middle

and the poles lean in

with the weight of newly washed.

And threaten to topple

as a stiff wind whips through;

wet towels

snapping-off their pegs,

and clothes flapping like prayer flags

on Tibetan mountaintops.

So even in summer

I miss the dryer's rumble;

the low-pitched purr

of smoothly meshing gears,

the softly burbling fan

bearings, gimbals, shaft.

The blast of heat

as the door's unlatched

an arm or leg spills out.

And the laying-on of hands

on a cold damp day,

as I patiently wait

for my flannel pyjamas to warm.