Poem of the Day

I'm taking a free online poetry class, and this is the poem I wrote this morning, posted with very minimal revision. The prompt or assignment was to write about striking a board.

Sick of Laundry--1933

Hot water stings her hands
knuckles rubbed raw, almost bloody
on the metal washboard’s galvanized grooves

baby socks, faded blue work shirts,
threadbare overalls, pant legs caked with dried manure from the barn
rubbed with cakes of murky soap,
scraped against the ridges of the board,
they disappear into the grey water of the tub
fabric worn thin

Cramps in her arms, back bent over
feet shuffle across dead, brown grass


Wooden clothespins, their mouths filled with dripping material
dot a single clothesline sagging from the house to
a stick of an apple tree bent under the weight

Dust coats bed sheets in a gale of prairie wind
turning crisp whiteness into dingy brown

Why bother?
She’d like to smash the clothes basket, splinters
of wicker flying across the scorched garden
but there’s no money for a new one
so instead
even though there’s no one but God to hear,
she slams the board and hollers “No more!”