Unexacting Poems | Examples

Waiting For the Wash

I was slumped 
in the plastic lawn chair 
and was fixated 
upon the spinning cycle 
of the washing machine.

I stared at the psychedelic trip 
of prismatic swirl and listened 
to the innate hum of the machine’s innards 
as the clothes 
churned around and around in circles. 

The tangled clothes were lustful dancers 
in the gyrating, soaking discotheque.
The midnight blue leg of the jeans 
seductively wrapped herself 
around the arm of a dapper 
and unexacting turtleneck.

A trio of tee shirts 
stuck to the farther wall of the machine, 
each afraid to venture near the vortex, 
but each was curious 
and watched the scene from a distance.
Two socks- one black, one white- 
clung to a pair of boxers with such pathetic longing,
that it caused me to blush. 
I watched the clothes the way a chaperone 
would keep his eyes 
on the student body at the prom.

It is at this point that I realize 
I need to find a girlfriend.