Hanging on a Line

Warm winds puff,
lifts damp hair off my neck,
swirls my shirt around my body.

Sleeves cling to my sweaty arms
lifting sheets to a clothesline
secured with an orange peg.

If not for that breeze
the hot would oppress
with its humid breath.

I think of Australian women who have gone before me
those who hang laundry in other climes:
sticky tropical, dusty desert, verdant hills.

I picture time-worn faces,
cracked and defined by age and fickle weather
and circumstances and life.

I imagine gnarled hands that grip
lids of jars of harvested peaches and apricots,
and put clothes and sheets on lines in the sun.

I'm not an Australian woman;
But I see her in my neighbors, at the post office
and driving her beat-up ute to market.

As I ponder, black clouds break open,
the wind shifts like a compass needle
and hot rain thunders down on freshly laundered sheets.