Dead Weight

From the machine, it came up heavy.

A drowned animal, gray, soaking, so

full of water it threatened to tear

the weak plastic basket.

Bathmat.

Just a bathmat.

But it pulled, a dead weight

against the shoulder, the muscle

aching instantly. Water slicked the floor,

fat drops, cold, spreading thin.

It takes more out of you,

some days, than you put in.

Just lifting the ordinary,

sodden, from one place to another.

Like moving something

you should have thrown out

years ago.