Permanent Press

• I’ve learned the difference
• between regular and delicate
• but haven’t yet come to terms with
• setting the dial at permanent press,
• which sounds both business

• casual and fatalistic as if there
• were a setting that determined
• not just the presentation but
• the quality of our lives. The reality
• of such a setting reminds me

• I was once more attuned to
• the inner life of the dryer,
• for what child could resist such
• a place to hide while others seek
• as a Whirlpool resplendent with

• the danger that made it less
• obvious, having been told by my mom
• it was a space I should never
• try to occupy. Her description
• of a make-believe kid like me

• spinning among the separated
• cottons was vivid enough to turn
• the Whirlpool into a hole in the house
• that contained a zero-sum
• game adding up to something

• more real and specific than
• the deadlier but secure hazards inside
• the locked tool shed where one
• might try to spin the mower’s
• blades and separate themselves

• forever. No one ever found me
• inside the Whirlpool, the hide
• and seek having long fizzled out
• because it was and is a game
• that has no beginning or end

• just interested parties. I think
• I’m still playing a version of it
• with those people I thought I’d
• grown out of, a chance encounter
• sure to end with “your turn,”

• betraying the lapse in my grasp
• of the rules of the game the way a slip
• of the hand on the dial this morning
• has again shrunk my delicates
• into clothes I struggle now to fit.

Photo by Flickr user Eric Flexyourhead