The Washerwoman at Dusk
The stream runs warm with the last of the light.
Her hands, red as radishes,
beat linen clean on the stone.
She hums.
Not for joy,
but to keep time.
A song her mother used to sing
while scattering feed for the geese.
No one calls her name.
She scrubs the fabrics,
dunks and dips again.
A glint upstream.
Caught between roots:
a scroll,
sealed in wax with a crest
no villager would know.
She lifts it from the water,
slips it open.
The ink holds fast.
The letters all there,
each one shaped like a thing she’s never owned.
She cannot read,
but smells rosemary,
and something like smoke—
the ghost of a kitchen
where a hand once held hers,
and a voice, soft as feather, called her beautiful.
She sets it
gently back on the water,
watches it drift
until the breeze takes it.
Then turns to the last shirt,
rinses twice,
wrings it hard
before the light is gone.
*
The Old Waynesville Mountaineer Press
They roll it out through the dock doors
in pieces,
like a body.
The man in charge stands on the stoop,
more interested in his coffee
than the men hauling the press.
He talks to no one in particular
about square footage
and modern upgrades.
Another man stands beside him,
matching his stance,
nodding with the same rhythm,
like an understudy learning the lines.
Says they’ll sell the scrap
or send it to a museum,
like it’s all the same.
Across the street,
an old man watches,
hands folded on a cane,
eyes fixed on the skeleton of the press
laid bare in the cold.
He’d always imagined it alive,
a single, pounding body.
Now it’s nothing but
scattered limbs,
once fluent in motion,
now strange and separate,
each piece meaningless alone.
He closes his eyes.
For a moment,
the cold is replaced by heat,
ink-slick steam rising
as the presses thunder.
Men in rolled sleeves,
laughing, cursing, shouting over the noise.
The thud of boots on concrete.
The tremble in his ribs
as the morning edition comes alive.
Stacks of newsprint warm from the press,
their inky scent thick in the air.
Sharp, metallic, almost sweet.
He remembers grabbing his stack
before the town had even stirred,
the weight of it
against his narrow chest,
the streetlamp flickering
as he swung his satchel into place.
A loud clank,
he opens his eyes.
The final hunk of the press,
a piece so large it takes three men to guide it,
vanishes into the back of the truck.
The lift groans.
The doors slam shut.
And just like that,
it is gone.
The haulers climb in.
The engine coughs.
The truck turns the corner.
The men from the newspaper building
disappear back inside,
talking about lunch
and supply chains
and square footage.
The press is simply gone,
its breath, its gravity
emptied from the street
like it had never been there at all.
The old man pulls his sleeves tight
against the sudden wind.
He watches the empty bay
where the press had stood
like something holy.
He stands slowly,
begins the walk home,
hands deep in his pockets.
The ink long gone
but lodged in the turning parts of him
The boy, the street,
the morning still waiting for news.
*
Baskin Cooper is a poet and visual artist based in Chatham County, North Carolina. His work often blends folklore, lyricism, and personal history. He lived in Cork, Ireland, and holds a PhD in Psychology. His poems have appeared in Rattle, and his debut manuscript, The Space Between Branches, is currently seeking publication. Beyond poetry, Cooper is also a screenwriter, songwriter, sculptor, and voice actor.
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