Laundry
A pink house trailer,
scuffed and rusted, sunken
in weeds. On the line,
five pale blue workshirts
soiled by five sons
who don't live there
any longer, but
have not yet
married someone to
wash them. Mother
lifts the basket
and rests it atop
her growing belly.
-MWE
21 May 2001
Note: This poem came from a workshop with Angela Patten at the 2001 New England Young Writer's Conference, in which the students were given the first four lines of Ted Kooser's poem by the same name and asked to complete it. Click here to read the original poem.
