I fail at spirit perpetually. EVIDENCE—one shirt linen—green—
sewn in Bangladesh—I’ve pulled
from the others. It is Tuesday
and it is soiled
and I am doing laundry. Blue linen—India—
something plaid—Sri Lanka—snapping
from the collar to get the wrinkles out. Yard
fat with summer.
A few bees. All my First World pain—
I have some of that—
washed away—I’ve done a second rinse. Pissed
into the secret basins of my city.
Now I air dry—I like the fabric coarse—
like a woman’s
hand—smell of daylight
in the weave—
an eroticism
but with no real touch—I cannot for the life of me
conjure body
that stitched each cuff and pocket—the cicada-clicking
engines of dying sweat. Phrases
n Bengali
for fingers numb—back is failing—
there are no supports for the chairs—my pious acts
of consumption
notwithstanding (I paid good money
for the styles). It is Tuesday—still—there is a sense
of newness in the world—
the shirts are being
reborn—residues of wind and sun—infusions
of added scent. The one set aside I am scrubbing—
there’s ink on a cuff that must be
erased—pinpoint portal
to nowhere—smear of a word in Bengali maybe—śrama—
indicating labor—but not the toil—
that’s mine—bare-fingered witching the stain away.