Ode to a Washing Machine

You sit in the corner, like a Cyclops

With your one staring eye, white and clinical.

Crusty drips spill from the top left drawer

And lint has gathered there,

Like ants to a fallen food piece.

There is a small darkness on your lower lip

Which suggests mould forming,

Or dirt crumbs congregating, or grains of sand.

You look unkempt and unloved,

Surrounded by the scatterings and detritus

Of smelly humans.

But it is hard to view you as a monster

When you are so helpful.

Like a hunched henchman in a horror film,

You loyally do my bidding without hesitation.

You regularly open up your perspex mouth

To my dirty laundry,

And I close it in so that you can't spit it out,

With a clunk and a click.

Churning my denims, swishing underpants and shirts

And foaming up socks,

Occasionally devouring one as payment for services.

It is a small price to pay for smooth, ungnarly hands.

*

I think about what life would be like without you-

Look into the past before your arrival,

And shudder.

Standing in fast moving water, chilled,

Balancing on slippery stones, foot curving to their surface.

Desperately gripping.

Using rocks for scrubbers and their big brother boulders

For draping, to dry.

I picture myself as a servant, carting loads of linens

To the wash house. It will take me all day.

My hands will be hideous, raw and sore.

Bright, bright magenta.

I will have rubbed and pummelled and plunged:

Harsh chemicals will have coated my skin

And my back! Oh, my back!

It will ache with the strain and the vigour

Needed to clean the Master's sheets.

Twisted into rope cord to rid them of drops,

Hands tight and throbbing from the strain.

Such a process from scrubbing, to the mangle,

To the lynching of items on the line,

Hanging like sails, trying to wrench themselves free

From their tether. I will sleep well

But not enough to rid me of my aches;

Only enough to calm them.

*

They are arduous images

And I give thanks for technology.

My washer is a treasure,

A time machine.

It gives me the gift of hours.

*

I sit and listen to it whirr and twirl and hum,

The clothes drenched and turning

Round and round,

Like a liberated prisoner in the rain

On release:

Soaked, cleansed, renewed.

It doesn't like towels, I know;

They make it grind and groan

Like an engine up steep terrain

But it is diligent, my minion,

And finishes the job

Without spillage or grumble.

*

I am grateful for what it gives me.

It seems only right to show appreciation

For something which takes so much away,

Deals with it efficiently and waits patiently for you to notice.

Just a small beep, like a squeak from a pet mouse

To let you know its job is done.

No fuss, just dutiful completion.

I couldn't live (well) without it.

*

Machine, I thank you.

Thank you for the drudgery.

Thank you for the time.

I am in your debt.