Woman at Clothes Line
Strapped sandals lift the lady
above the lawn. Hung linens adopt her
hippy contours. This is no steamy
Tide commercial. Our star is absorbed
in cooler, wetter realities. She wears
a blue dress, white scarf. Her mouth
twitches wryly into some future. What
rustles toward her through the October
yard? Consider recklessness, how it breeds
in safe places. Was laundry ever just
a chore? Hold a rinsed blouse to your
face. Gaze through its weave at the gauzy
world. Notice how whiteness drinks itself
blue, agitates the fallen red
leaves. Those blankets have been under
your skin. They have things to tell you—
grey, woolly things. She lugs them out
to air their moth-eaten souls. How
gracefully she hoists her basket, all her
disappointments. It’s clear from her eyes, the absence
of pins. Nothing here will blow away.
from Out to Dry in Cape Breton, Véhicule Press, 2006
Anita Lahey
Anita Lahey’s latest book is The Last Goldfish: a True Tale of Friendship (Biblioasis, 2020). She’s also author of the Véhicule Press poetry collections Out to Dry in Cape Breton (2006) and Spinning Side Kick (2011), and the prose collection The Mystery Shopping Cart: Essays on Poetry and Culture (Palimpsest, 2013). Anita is series editor for the annual anthology Best Canadian Poetry. She lives in Ottawa, on unceded Alongonquin, Anishinabek territory, with her family and their little black cat, Milli.