“Chores: Folding Clothes” by Teneice Durrant Delgado

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The living room floor has become
my factory, a conveyor belt of artificially scented
spring in the third winter of our base housing.
The clothes only get bigger, never
smaller, except for the inseams
of my daughters’ shorts. I practice
the ancient art of retail origami,
flipping sleeves and hems into sleek
fabric rectangles, a kaleidoscope
of colors that cover my children while they
live their little lives: these pants for a first
day of school. This sock, its partner missing,
for her first lie. The first real one. The lie that
broke hearts, made me look at her
like she was a woman.

-Teneice Durrant Delgado

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