On Reading Allen Ginsberg’s “Homework”

^{after an article in the New York Times} 

It was in the Financial Section. On page 3, below
the fold. A huge multi-national conglomerate is
praised for an “innovative marketing program”

that washes dirty clothes and linens for free  
after a disaster. This time it’s the tornado
that tore through Joplin, but Loads of Hope

began after Katrina. When I think how hard
and costly it was to wash everything we
didn’t throw away after 9/11, my eyes

well up. To begin with, no water or electricity.
It would be months before new machines
arrived to replace those contaminated by dust.

Everything in closets, dressers, chests had to be
hauled to a distant laundry. The sheer number
of quarters it took, the fear that, no matter

how many wash, rinse and spin cycles, 
our clothes would never be clean enough
to put against skin. Allergic to perfumes

as I became after 9/11, I want to breathe
in the Tide of cleanliness; to be one of the lucky,
leaving our filthy belongings with strangers

to remove what they can of disaster and return
them to us, clean, neatly folded, wrapped 
in paper, bagged, and tied with a ribbon.