Today's poem is by Susan L. Leary

On Sundays, I Do Laundry
       

& there she is—a girl, hidden
inside the rhythmic tumult of a river. As the sun
pours into the kitchen, I take inventory
of a life, her cotton dress breaking
into a meticulous shade of yellow. Water
rushes empty of sound & I am
reminded of the woman in that story who stands in the same
place in her apartment for hours, just
staring ahead. Of how she got there, I am not
to be trusted: a nameless girl must remain
nameless, though am I the girl or the one who refuses
to name her? What is to be freely explained
again tumbling past, then briefly
a hand fitting snug inside my head. & what is the head
without the mouth or the heart? Without the corpse
clad anonymously in dirt? A see-through dress
without pockets? There are more details to the scene: a rubied
horse, a pristine scrap of fabric, a knife
bent atop the river. So I speak
to myself about my body. Touch it to know
it is mine, the hidden-ness a hair shy of being treated
unfairly, or so I am told. & this is what I love
about the rotating dark, about a loose
button, about the water weaving into sunset
& then the sunset & then god: a warm body retrieved from
the flowers, a thread unraveling as it is freed.

Copyright © 2025 Susan L. Leary All rights reserved
from The Shore
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission