American Life in Poetry: ‘Pinned in Place’ by Thomas Reiter

Ezra Pound commanded America’s poets to “Make it new.” And here’s a good example. Has there ever been another poem written, and written beautifully, about children playing among laundry drying on a line?

Thomas Reiter, who lives in New Jersey, is a poet whose work I’ve followed for many years. His most recent book is “Catchment.” This poem appeared in the Tampa Review.

Pinned in Place

A bed sheet hung out to dry

became a screen for shadow animals.

But of all laundry days in the neighborhood

the windy ones were best,

the clothespins like little men riding

lines that tried to buck them off.

One at a time we ran down the aisles

between snapping sheets

that wanted to put us in our place.

Timing them, you faked and cut

like famous halfbacks. But if a sheet

tagged you it put you down, pinned

by the whiteness floating

against a sky washed by the bluing

our mothers added to the wash water.

Could anyone make it through those days

untouched? You waited for

your chance, then jumped up and finished

the course, rising if you fell again.

Later, let the sky darken suddenly

and we’d be sent out to empty the lines.

All up and down the block, kids

running with bed sheets in their arms,

running like firemen rescuing children.

All night those sheets lay draped

over furniture, as though we were leaving

and would not return for a long time.