Laundry Quintet

Nothin' happened underground in Louisiana

Except in this house

Except here

Except here

At 913 St. Anthony Street

Lake Charles, Louisiana

This house got a basement

This house got a basement, true

No other house 'round here gots one

No other house 'round here gots one

This one, this one, this one do

This one, this one, this one

Ain't very deep for a basement

But still it's planted in the swampy soil

Sunk in the mud, in the marsh and the mire

Down with the snakes and the snails and the bracken (I agitate)

Singin' them sediment top-soil blues (root to the bayou)

Alluvial delta silt

Saltwater ooze

Round and round I agitate

While them what does the clothes await

They mm, contemplate and

Mm, speculate

In the peace my one-horsepower

Electric motors hum

Creates

Tough and dreary and (in the peace) (them that does)

All disheveled (my one-horsepower) (the clothes awaits)

Sixteen feet (electric motors) (they contemplates)

Below sea level (hum, creates) (they speculates)

What shall be?

What lies in store

In 1963?

Or four?