Hanging on a Line (revised)

Warm wind puffs,
lifts damp hair off my neck,
swirls shirts around my body.

Sleeves cling to my sweaty arms
while lifting linen to a clothesline
then secured with an orange peg.

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

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

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

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

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

-30-