Rainy Day Laundry Blues

Laundry

Death 

And taxes

Life’s constants 

Guam’s rain pinging on tin carport grooves

With laundry lines stretched pillar to pillar

Clothes swaying in time

to banal eaves rivaling raindrops outside

Hong Kong’s clammy, cold and condensed windows

Rain collecting outside, water inside pooling in sills

Laundry hung on shower curtain rods

Waiting quietly for a sunny day

Tokyo’s dreaded rainy season (5 days of sun in 6 weeks)

No place to hang to dry

Washing deferred until rain abates

Or is consigned to coin laundries fouled with musty pet smells

Northern France’s cold gray summers

Wool was ever still an option

Dry cleaning lessened wash loads

Drying racks became statuary of flags and banners

Yorskshire’s daily fickle seasons of Autumn, Winter and Spring

Rainy mornings, gusty cold afternoons and thunderstorms

Damp linen evacuated from yard to steam radiators between cups of tea

Flipped, folded and crowded till dried and crisply singed

Korea’s heated floors begged for use

Roll back the carpets

Unfold and load the clothes horses

Fabric softener scents mingling with furniture polish and garlic

Alaska’s cooler weather and steel gray skies

Gas laundry dryers with ferocious vents

A living room window with vapor rising

Frames a moose huddling over the steam for warmth.