I squat deep and check
My position’s incline
I round out my shoulders and straighten my spine
My basket’s deployed:
Not a chance it could fail
I wriggle my fingers and pause to inhale
I fling the door open –
There’s no time to waste!
I scoop and collect with extravagant haste
The nooks have been scoured
The crannies are scanned –
The warm drum (now empty)’s been scraped out by hand
No way this machine
Has outsmarted my whit
No way this big black hole has my clothes in it
I dispatch the hangers
Swing open the drawers
Reload them, restock them to just like before
One at a time –
And yet sometimes in pairs –
Everything’s orderly, counted with care
But just when the smile of
Great victory
Starts etching and sketching its way on to me
I feel, underfoot,
Something fluffy and thin
And I know in an instant: the dryer DID win –
A SOCK!!!
It mocks me and lays there
All desperate and lonely
I hunt for its match but see that one and only
So how did the dryer
Outfox me once more?!
How, since I prepped for this, practiced galore?!
My confidence, assurance
All now dissolved
The mystery of lost socks will never be solved!
But who will emboldened be
By this and show –
Please show the whole world … where DO they all go?!?!
Esti Stoian, 2025