Dreams on Laundry Day

i held your hair

in my hand

a fan of gold and brown

(autumn)

between splayed fingers

while you slept

the sleep of watchers in the field

betrayed by the lowing

of the crickets’ song

and the tiniest of smiles

punctured

the gauze held in place

by the vividness of eyes adjusted by

 moonlight stoking the beamed motes

luminescence

a candle lit

 

i failed to hold your fingers

pale in the darkness

as you reached for dreams

in which you worked less and joked more

 

this was not what I intended

in my feminist youth

but the reality of breast milk

and the wage differential

set in and stapled my world

cancelling ambition

squelching needs

until that permanence

so etched

defining my walls

giving them substance

slowly disappeared

amidst dreams scattered

drying in wet grass

weighted

by tears unspent

on laundry day.

copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt

Reviews

[FJ Davis]

Only you, Audrey, could turn laundry day into a literary event.
An intriguing and insightful piece created by an amazing artist!

[Audrey Howitt]

Thank you Frank!!!

[New Dawn]

It is so easy to lose sight of yourself whilst drowning in the demands of family life. For years I juggled children , husband and part time career. Yet my dreams changed over time and became more family orientated - I used my creativity to inspire my children to be creative and surprisingly it is my children who have encouraged me to write.They are my greatest critics. A Beautiful and thought provoking write that is highly relevant to alot of people

[Audrey Howitt]

Thank you so much for the read and comments! Life is often not what we expect, but it is always interesting

[Tina Kline]

A wonderful and brilliant write. Sometimes the lives we end up with which aren't always negative don't match the d reams that we once had for ourselves; I really enjoyed this poem.

[cartera]

Is the alternative to turn the children over to the State for the State to bring them up while we visit on high days and holidays?
Unspent tears are the stoical price paid, and not just by the female of the species.
..................
By the way, are your whites whiter than white? do you use non-biological? do you turn him out well?

[emmajoy]

A sadness of thought at a time when so often the mind's switched off: the looking back, the presence of what is, the how it's been .. temporary samenesses but ever changing happenings and emotions. life alters dreams, dreams alter life. But, your incredible writing reminds the reader that maybe, just maybe, the end of one dream can lead to another..

[Justin W Price]

Excellent Audrey. You painted beautiful pictures with this one.

[SHEEMA HUQ]

epic and a good account of the disparity between idealism, and lived reality....

[MOON]

Laundry day the bane of life even a poet cant escape.

[Kenneth The Poet]

A feminist anthem held undercover the mundane nature of housework. I like this.

[Ed Hart]

yes, but somewhere in there a poet was in the making...so dreams may have evaporated, but the reality that remains is a mixture of wisdom and beauty...even on laundry day