I Didn't Know I Was Doing It

Sunday morning, automatic: the sheets

from the bed to the bag to the machine,

the cup of powder, the door clunking shut.

I wasn't thinking.

The dryer ran for forty minutes

while I did other things — the dishes,

a text I'd been putting off, a glass

of water at the sink.

I pulled the pillowcase out warm

and held it to my face in the yellow light

of the laundry room, the bulb

that's been flickering since October.

It smelled like the detergent.

Clean. Generic. Nothing.

I had not known that morning would be the last morning.

I had not saved it.

I stood in the yellow flicker

with the warm cotton against my nose

and breathed in

the nothing I had made.