by Bruce E. R. Thompson.
I met a woman at the laundromat,
who said—“There’s quietude in folding clothes.
A menial task; but not as bad as that.
It gives me time to think. Sometimes I pause
and wonder why it matters that sheets be flat,
or stockings matched and rolled. It does, of course.
Nothing in ten thousand years has mattered more.
Without fresh clothes, life is squalor and remorse.
Women’s work!—the end never realized;
yet, rest assured: to carry on this chore,
generations of new daughters will be raised.
When I reach Heaven, what wonders will it hold?
No one can tell, but I’ll be much amazed
if, even there, there are not clothes to fold.”