The old washboard

stands in a five dollar flea market tub

with three faded, scratched up tall coke bottles,

a rusted plaid patterned lunch pail,

a red plastic mesh bag filled with used beach toys,

a broken hobby horse some kid rode once 

while yelling, Hi, Ho, Silver! Away!



Among this disregarded dusty junk,

the old washboard looks fragile 

as if the wood surrounding the corrugated steel

might fracture should a woman grasp it

intending to use it to scrub stains

from familial laundry

like my mother did with her’s.



I remember my mother’s washboard

standing in her soaking bucket,

filled with 20 Mule Team Borax, Biz, and hot water,

which stood in the concrete laundry tubs

in the basement of the house.



I remember how her knuckles turned red,

the skin raw looking, as she scrubbed blood

from a blouse, pouring salt from a Morton’s

salt container onto the stain then scrubbing

up and down, up and down on the washboard, 

then dunking the blouse twice 

to see if the stain was gone.

Pour, scrub, scrub, dunk, dunk

pour, scrub, scrub, dunk, dunk

pour, scrub, scrub, dunk, dunk

The pattern, the rhythm, until the stain erased.



I have no soaking bucket, 

no Twenty Mule Team Borax, no Biz,

no washboard

to get my stains out.  

My spray bottle of Oxi Clean Stain Remover 

pales in memory

of my mother’s washboard.