Emily Franklin
Poetry
Emily Franklin’s debut poetry collection Tell Me How You Got Here was published by Terrapin Books in 2021. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Guernica, New Ohio Review, Cincinnati Review, Blackbird, and The Rumpus among other places as well as featured on National Public Radio and named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries. Her novel Becoming Isabella, based on the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner, is forthcoming from Godine Books.
Laundry
I do not mind how
my son asks me
to switch his laundry
from the washer over
to the dryer—he has
the skills to start the load
himself and has gotten
his shit enough together
that in a year he will likely
leave my house which is
the right thing, the act we
are supposed to aim for
to support even though it
feels twisted as the pant
legs and towels damp
and defeated out of the
wash and of course I want
him to be able to be elsewhere
and moving wet clothing
he gathered himself as though
picking through a sad garden
of dirty things and I am reminded
in the damp dryer heat of visiting
my grandparents in their Florida
condo and how beloved I felt
in that warm palmy stucco
not only with them but surrounded
by old people who thought I was
wonderful, that just by being young
I was also beautiful and carried no shame
and how that hot damp followed
each step from the tiled pool to their orange
doorway, marigold bright because why not
it was the end and they knew it was the end
and after a long day of doing pretty much nothing
I would sit with their loving saggy bodies and play
cards or do the laundry, the machine rumbling sounds
of pure joy at being used and filled with clothing
youthful with hope the way my son’s sweatshirt
now is free of his nosebleed, the grime of his job,
and I want to slump into the heat of the tiny room
where everything is clean, is warm, is possible.
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