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Since 1996 Volume XXI

Ellaraine Lockie

 

Ellaraine Lockie’s recent poetry has been awarded the 2013 Women’s National Book Association’s Poetry Prize, Best Individual Collection from Purple Patch magazine in England for Stroking David's Leg, winner of the San Gabriel Poetry Festival Chapbook Contest for Red for the Funeral and The Aurorean's Chapbook Pick for Wild as in Familiar.  Ellaraine teaches poetry workshops and serves as Poetry Editor for the lifestyles magazine, Lilipoh.

Airing Dirty Laundry

 “What is it about hanging wash that disturbs people so?”          
Galloping Bungalow, David A. Thornburg, Los Angeles Museum
               of Jurassic Technology

 

We hang from a cotton cord

dripping intimate details

that won't wash out

Labels sale-scissor slashed

that broadcast bra cup capacities

Brands that bare income brackets

and sizes sacred to fitting rooms

 

Dark secrets defenseless

in the scrutiny of daylight

Like elastic stretched and slack

Unmatched socks with holes

And stains betraying bodily functions

or housewifely inabilities

 

All open to invasion by omniscient eyes

that see us uninhabited

and envision unclad bodies

Conjured up as writhing shapes beneath sheets

blowing provocative in a breeze

Or as peeping Toms

prompted by public panties

 

Perhaps the source of anxiety

is simple inhibition

A throwback to puritanical oppression

Or the more discomposing possibility

that we are ghosts animating empty garments

 

Departed spirits that gesture death

as we float on gossamer dread

Our fingers crooking fears so diabolic

that we are often deferred drip free

to indoor dryers

 

 

© Copyright, Ellaraine Lockie.
All Rights Reserved.