MargenAt three in the morning the washing machine goes into its spin cycle and the whole house applauds.
It's the only one working at this hour: a tin heart turning what's ours over and over, water and soap for the clothes that tomorrow will pretend nothing ever happened.
I'm not sleeping either. I spin: I turn a phrase from yesterday over and over, rinse it, wring it out, stain it again just by thinking it.
We should be able to climb in like that, short cycle, forty degrees, and come out clean and wrinkled, smelling of synthetic orange blossom, ready for someone to hang us out in the sun.
The washing machine finishes with three beeps. It, at least, knows how to end things.