Clothespin
By Sarah J. Sloat



Rorschach of the laundry sack –

I pinch your bottom and some see
the long maw of the crocodile
in a shadow play

or a primitive insect, maybe
a mother who won’t let go.

Little intimate of the bedclothes,
into your muzzle go rags
and nightgowns, trappings and briefs,

gnawed but not pierced,
not discussed, not disclosed.

Could you speak, your voice
might twang or chirp, but you come
from the church that touts

shut your trap as first commandment,
monk’s tongue sworn to silence.

When you snap, when your joint
rejects resting ajar, all
that is conjured is the clack

of a castenet, terse, reluctant,
a foot stamped to discourage dance.

Second cousin to the mousetrap,
tense and cunning as a Gemini,
you’re yin/yang with an oral fixation.

Though upside down
on the clothesline, your silhouette

reveals the inverse,
a contraption that needs both
to take in and keep,

the house’s clampdown,
the control freak.

© 2010 prickofthespindle.com