Notes About The Poem
Why are you in the corner having a massive, synthetic fiber panic attack about a common occurrence.
Left-Footed Panic
The humming drum of the dryer stops,
A warm, static-cling avalanche drops,
The shirts are smoothed on a wooden table,
The jeans are stacked as tight as they’re able.
The basket is filled with a fragrant grace,
Ready to return to the proper place.
The sweaters are folded, the linens align,
And the cotton pairs up in a neat, perfect line.
Then—void.
Down in the dark of the basket’s deep floor,
A small woolen pulse beats behind a closed door.
Left-Footed Stripey is spinning with dread,
A panic of acrylic inflating his head.
He shivers in silence, then scrambles to see
The edge of the rim where the giants must be.
He checks every towel, he digs through the sheets,
Inspecting each seam as his nylon soul tweets.
“Where is she?” he whimpers, his elastic gone slack,
“We went in together, we have to go back!
We’ve been through the mud and the grass by the lake,
Through the miles of running, the steps that we take.
She holds my left stripe! I hold her right heel!
Poly-blend polymers—how should I feel?
Like a real piece of clothing, or threads in a bunch,
A microfiber rag for a puppy to crunch?”
He remembers the darkness, the terrible spin,
The churning of water, the chaos within,
The suds and the heat of the cyclical storm,
Where they clung to each other to try and keep warm.
But a giant blue towel had forced them apart,
Tearing the rayon right out of his heart.
She had slipped down a gap, or been swept out of sight,
Bleached from his life in the middle of night.
Now he stands on the rim, a lone, frantic sock,
Staring out at the room in a state of pure shock.
He sees the dark drawer where they usually sleep,
A sanctuary where the shadows are deep.
They’d curl up together, a tight little ball,
Tucked in the dark, doing nothing at all,
But today he is single, completely un-spun,
A fraying outcast under the sun.
“Did you drop behind the dryer?” he screams to the air,
“Are you stuck in a pant leg? I swear it’s not fair!
Did a static charge glue you to the back of a shirt?
Are you cold? Are you lonely? Are you covered in dirt?”
He looks at the underwear stacked in a row,
They look back with pity; they already know.
The t-shirts say nothing, they just look away,
For the tragedy happens almost every laundry day.
The giant hand descends from the sky up above,
Lifting Stripey away from the things that he loved.
He is tossed in a basket of mismatched and lost,
Where the lonely ones gather, counting the cost.
He sits in the corner, his heel-thread unspooling,
While the rest of the house keeps on warming and cooling.
He will wait for the wash, and pray for the sight
Of his beautiful, matching, right-sided stripe.
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