Ode to the Estate ETQ4400XQ

Listen to Matt Del Busto read the poem:

after Robert Wood Lynn

Not long after dinner’s beginning at the 
             duplex we’ll live in for four more
weeks on West Middle, where it is
                            mealtime pretty much all the time, our Estate 
ETQ4400XQ washer, a machine whose only job

is to do the dirty work of cleaning that
             which can’t yet be re-worn, finds itself pressed 
into service even now, a Sunday night,
                            because our son, despite all the good news 
of children (the alarm-clock feature

he, like all babies,
              are born with, the eternal roundness 
of his cheeks, and his refreshing
                            emotional transparency), shat straight through 
his diaper, up his back, soaked

his onesie, and stained the cloth of his BabyBjörn 
              a daring shade of mustard yellow.
And, yes, this cloth—now pilling—is the same
                            cloth we’d washed the previous day, and by now 
I must admit, every surface in this brown

house has had or will soon
              have traces of his excrement—the yellow, 
seedy stuff of breastfed champions globally—
                           and be assured, dear reader, it is everywhere: 
atop the busted dryer where we set

soiled clothes before washing, flecks of it 
              dotting the carpet, the hamper,
a whole stripe of it across the car seat every
                            other week. My wife, who thinks it 
smells sweet (sweet like bad

fruit—freaky mango pulp clinging
              to a blender’s dirty blade), has smelled it 
emanating from our kitchen sink,
                           where the desoiling process often 
begins, before it makes its way to the laundry room,

and here, we have no one
             to thank more than you, Estate ETQ4400XQ, 
our heavy-duty top-load hero, consistent
                           as sunup, each of your eight 
cycles just a twist and a click away,

so thank goodness your favorite button 
             is ON, and blessed be your
swish-churn magic, Mr. Estate—can I call you
                             mister? Master of the good and 
holy work of taking our shit, our literal

shit, and making of it soft cotton and clean
             so frequently because, listen, when he’s in that seat 
touted for safety, its tangle of straps a kind
                           of weird girdle, the poop—always warm, often 
pasty—it can’t go anywhere

but up. And after cleaning, it lingers
             under fingernails and the miscellaneous folds 
of each thigh, the possibility of more
                            always in the corner of my vision. The omnipresent 
question: Is that . . . ? but no, it’s just the smooth

peel of a discarded banana, a squeeze of Dijon, 
              a slice of za. It’s just highlighter, pen ink,
the rare wooden pencil
                           speechless in the bottom drawer 
until picked up. I just might know

how you’ve felt, Mr. Estate, and for months: 
              your white husk chilly through the
midnight hour, your water mindless mist
                           until the advent of fabric. I’ve been there, 
now. I’ve seen it. These hands

are just my hands until I hold 
               my son.

Read more from Issue 22.2.