alright, let me try to explain
about ironing cotton sheets

they start out crumpled like a wad of paper mistakes
so some of us women set up an ironing board
and begin a task we would not allow you to pay us to do

after all we can command Itzhak Perlman to bow us back into our senses
as we spray the water and watch the flowery sheets pucker
the mist floats before us and drifts down
moistening the back of our hands, the bare skin of our brown legs
and we set down the bottle
to lift the scalding iron
move it slowly
across the damp wrinkles
that give way
like helpless girls
caught in the inexhaustible heat of their first kiss
and with each pass of the flat, hot steel
the comforts of a newly made bed unfurl
so our hands shake out the next section
and our palms lie flat to smooth outward toward the corners
before we lift the bottle and begin again

and we take our time because the music takes its time
we inhale the rich scent
of the heated cotton
a mix of soap and toast
because cotton more than any other fabric
loves to be pampered and pressed
then we fold the sheet five times
stopping
to press the sides each time
just to be sure
and before we move it from the ironing board
we run our fingers over it
feel its comforting thickness
pick it up as if we were carefully weighing and measuring it
like produce
though we are really savoring the warmth and softness of our work
then we let it fall with a heavy thump into
our luxuriously empty laundry basket
to be taken up
kept in the cool darkness of the linen closet
and given time to store up countless dreams
that will
eventually
unroll like movies under the late night stars
accompanied by The Boston Symphony Orchestra

*2nd Place Winner Atlanta Review’s 1999 International Poetry Competition