Cleaning out the lint trap in the dryer
reminds me that
the way we wash away the old,
pulling the dirt
and the sweat
and the used life
out from the fibers
that we wrap around ourselves,
always leaves us with less.
There is no whole and unthinned
way through the tumbling and the heat.
Coming clean is a wearing out.
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But what we lose we do not need.
We scrape it from the trap
and throw it to the winds and the trash,
burn it in an early fire
and forget it,
loving, instead, the clean and dwindling threads
for what they are.
