You rise, you dawn <br />roll-sleeved Aphrodites, <br />out of a camisole brine, <br />a linen pit of stitches, <br />silking the fitted sheets <br />away from you like waves. <br /> <br />You seam dreams in the folds <br />of wash from which freshes <br />the whiff and reach of fields <br />where it bleached and stiffened. <br />Your chat’s sabbatical: <br />brides, wedding outfits, <br /> <br />a pleasure of leisured women <br />are sweated into the folds, <br />the neat heaps of linen. <br />Now the drag of the clasp. <br />Your wrists basket your waist. <br />You round to the square weight. <br /> <br />Wait. There behind you. <br />A man. There behind you. <br />Whatever you do don’t turn. <br />Why is he watching you? <br />Whatever you do don’t turn. <br />Whatever you do don’t turn. <br /> <br />See he takes his ease <br />staking his easel so, <br />slowly sharpening charcoal, <br />closing his eyes just so, <br />slowly smiling as if <br />so slowly he is <br /> <br />unbandaging his mind. <br />Surely a good laundress <br />would understand its twists, <br />its white turns, <br />its blind designs – <br />it’s your winding sheet. <br /> <br /> <br />Eavan Boland<br /><br />Eavan Aisling Boland<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/degas-s-laundresses/
