When the Clothesline Breaks

by Joel Ferdon

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Picture by Danielle Henry

December 16, 2011

For: David Clifford Ferdon

Out in the backyard

Of my Grandparent’s house,

There stands an old-

Fashioned clothesline connected

To two well loved, 

Rusted-over poles. 

Sometimes, I would play 

Through the piles of laundry;

The cliché white sheets,

My grandfather’s bleached handkerchiefs,

(But no monogram

For this grease monkey),

And what my grandfather called

His “holy” shirts;

Frayed to death

At the seam, he would always

Try to feed me a bit

Of religious jargon 

With this saying,

But I knew even as a child

They were only the shirts

He wore to work on cars. 

The last time I visited

The poles were still there,

The clothesline barely 

Hanging on, kind of how

I saw my grandfather’s 

Magenta colored legs

Wrapped up in terry cloth

Like some old battle wound. 

As my brother and I sat

And talked with the old man,

I could hear the desert air sway

The line. It was a twinge,

Like the delicate pluck

Of a five string banjo;

A warning sign 

That it was about

To break.