lights - a poem

moving down the stairs again,
leaving day, into the cellar,
first the pungency of dirty root bulbs,
then darkness interrupted by one light,
her cannings line the shelves,
specimens seeming animal, in rusting water,

later we are upstairs running clothes
through the machine, the wringer crank
spun by unsullied hands, brings with it
through it's mechanical arms, white shirts
first, followed by black trousers, onto the
washing board, where we scrub the stains
into non-existence,

outside now, the clothes all hung to dry,
monochromatic interruptions on the
sky blank with blue, cloudless