Newly wed, our below-ground city apartment

boasts no green or cellar spaces. A tangle of ropes

stretched on a wooden frame in the bathtub

behind closed doors collapses without warning

under the weight of dripping hand-wrung garments.

Celebrating our eagerly awaited intimacy and freedom,

who cares? Until the baby came. I learned to drive

an old English mini, baby buckled in beside laundry

heaped high in the back seat.

I rattle up Spadina's red cobbles to new machines

beside my mother's basement laundry tubs.

Wash three loads, hang out, take in, hang out,

fold and fold and fold, catch up on family news,

neighbourhood gossip. Grandma and baby play,

cook a second-helping-of-meat dinner. Good trade.