This mess has no time for your dreams.

It sulks in the corner,

Spits out the simple demand that

You must. It will

Not even turn its head when you

Clasp its knees and profess

All I have ever wanted is to ride triumphant into town

on a dappled horse, perfumed girls dancing

and banging cymbals in sway.

Here: a pile of clothing.

Watch it wax and wane, scraps

of Sunday morning moon.

I’d prefer to think in terms of progress:

Arrow making its arc towards flesh.

In seconds it will arrive, sinking through sinew,

seamless as the hand that slips between

cotton to find, at long last, the other sock.

Quite the prize, huh?

I’ve learned that there’s no victory in this work.

When all the clothes have been folded,

when the scraps have been picked up from the floor,

when the dirt and rubble have been swept away,

things are simply as they were.

“The mind boggles and chafes at the boredom.”¹

Clean, vacuum, sweep, polish, fold,

Rearrange the order of tasks,

and it makes no difference.

The room is no less clean if you take

the trash out before you sweep

the ash from the windowsill. Rearrange

the words and you seem to arrive

nowhere at all. Flaming and petal, a tightrope dog hums.

Next time I make my bed, I’ll put the quilt down before the sheets

and hope that I dream in reverse.

1. From “Manifesto for Maintenance Art,” Mierle Laderman Ukeles, 1969.
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This piece was originally published in Issue 1 of the print edition of Ordinary Matters magazine.