THE MEMORY OF A BED-SHEET:

I am merely a bed-sheet, square, white & plain,

With no given intelligence & just rather inane,

Imprinted in my fibres, all my memories past,

When I was laundered with care, & not so fast.

 

Sundays stripped, from creased slept in bed,

Mondays soaked, within tub of coppery red,

Tuesdays scrubbed, in suds with touch of starch,

Wednesdays pegged, to line beneath leafy larch,

Thursdays collected, & within warm airer aired,

Fridays pressed, by hand & hot iron of red coals,

Saturdays stretched again, upon bed, feeling whole.

Done with love & care, & by Mum, nothing spared.

 

Oh those days, of caring hands & blowing in the breeze,

Of perfumed petal winds & warm sun beneath old trees,

Oh how I yearn the softly folding & brilliance of my white,

I am merely a plain bed-sheet, who mantles you at night.

 

Now I´m misused bed-sheet, crushed, bunched & bundled,

Hurriedly into machine pushed, or off to laundry trundled,

Washed, dried without air, un-ironed, & into closet shoved,

So sad to be a bed-sheet, in these modern times & unloved.