Laundry

for all the misbehaved women who have yet to make history…
(Response to poet Amanda Johnston’s “Even Now”)


How you just air all our dirty
laundry like that, sis?
The granny panties with the bleached moon stains,
the big gurl draw’s with frayed elastic bands,
even the silky G-strings and
crotchless leopard print with lace
beneath blushing sun ablaze,
the worn titty holders,
the weakened bosom brace its
thinning cups translucent—
all our frolicking exposed
along one long hussy line.

How you just put all our business
on the street for passersby to preen? But

then again, hussy is as hussy does:
brazen, grinning, dangling
her charms on a velvet rope
waiting to tie him up,
wash him clean with her sins
again.

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Tamara J. Madison is a writer/poet, editor, and instructor motivated and inspired by her ancestry and relations. Her work is published in various journals and anthologies. She has also shared her poetry on the TEDx platform. She is producer of "BREAKDOWN: The Poet & The Poems," a YouTube conversation series. Her recent poetry collection, Threed, This Road Not Damascus, is published by Trio House Press.