after an article in the New York Times
It was in the Financial Section. On page 3, below
the fold. A huge multi-national conglomerate is
praised for an “innovative marketing program”
that washes dirty clothes and linens for free
after a disaster. This time it’s the tornado
that tore through Joplin, but Loads of Hope
began after Katrina. When I think how hard
and costly it was to wash everything we
didn’t throw away after 9/11, my eyes
well up. To begin with, no water or electricity.
It would be months before new machines
arrived to replace those contaminated by dust.
Everything in closets, dressers, chests had to be
hauled to a distant laundry. The sheer number
of quarters it took, the fear that, no matter
how many wash, rinse and spin cycles,
our clothes would never be clean enough
to put against skin. Allergic to perfumes
as I became after 9/11, I want to breathe
in the Tide of cleanliness; to be one of the lucky,
leaving our filthy belongings with strangers
to remove what they can of disaster and return
them to us, clean, neatly folded, wrapped
in paper, bagged, and tied with a ribbon.
Copyright © 2022 by Andrea Carter Brown. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 12, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.