Laundry Day

The humidity is hanging like a sheet,

thick with the scent of that cedarwood soap.

I can still feel the echo of the heat

and the ghost of a door-slam, killing the hope.

I stepped on the towel you left by the tub,

a cold, damp weight against the ball of my foot.

It’s matted with water, a heavy blue snub

lying right where the floorboards have started to soot.

You’re gone, and the tile is cracked near the drain,

but the fabric is holding the shape of your stride.

It’s a wet, heavy map of the quietest pain,

a piece of the mess that you left inside.

I should pick it up. I should throw it in the wash

and scrub out the smell of you from the room.

But I just stand here in the silence and the slosh,

watching the mirror fill up with the gloom.