The love of laundry
Your clothes are puddled, shorts, pants, socks nested. Pocket with a lolly stick broken in three place and two seashells, not from the same creature. It smells of your outdoors body. The evidence of slide tackles will need that pink stuff, so I rub it in with my finger.
Later I smooth and fold. Sink my nose deep in orderly scent. Inhale. T-shirts into thirds, pyjamas, trousers. A satisfying stack of playground colours. Then I trek, over Lego, capsized boots and splayed books. My solid fabric brick slots in next to the dangerous swirl of untamed stuff. Structure for childhood.
