Washing on the Line

There is just something so satisfying and pleasing about hanging your washing outside to dry.  It comes in smelling of fresh air and it looks marvellous while it is out there.

The images in the Simon Armitage poem are really effective.

Cataract Operation

The sun comes like a head
through last night's turtleneck.
A pigeon in the yard turns tail
and offers me a card. Any card.

From pillar to post, a pantomime
of damp, forgotten washing

on the washing line.
So, in the breeze:

the olé of a crimson towel.
the cancan of a ra ra skirt,

the monkey business of a shirt
pegged only by its sleeve,

the cheerio
of a handkerchief.

I drop the blind
but not before a company

of half a dozen hens
struts through the gate,

looks round the courtyard
for a contact lens.

Simon Armitage