Laundry Quintet
[CAROLINE]
Nothing happens under ground
in Louisiana. Cept in this house,
cept here, cept here:
At nine-thirteen Saint Anthony Street
in Lake Charles Louisiana:
This house got
a basement.
 
 
 
 
No other house round here gots one.
 
This one
this one
this one
Ain't very deep for a basement but still
it planted in the swampy soil,
sunk in the mud and the marsh and the mire,
down with the snakes and the snails and the bracken,
 
root to the bayou,
 
root to the ooze...  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
[THE WASHING MACHINE]
This house got
a basement.
True.
No other house round here gots one.
This one
this one
this one
do.
 
 
Hum
hum
hum
hum
round and round I agitates
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
round and round I agitates
while them what does the clothes awaits,
they contemplates and speculates,
in the peace my one-horsepower
lectric motor's hum creates:
 
while them what does the clothes awaits,
they contemplates and speculates, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
[THE RADIO]
... singing them sediment topsoil blues,
alluvial delta-silt saltwater ooze.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Tough and dreary and all dishevel,
sixteen feet below sea level. 
[THE RADIO AND THE WASHING MACHINE]
What shall be? What Lies in store
in Nineteen-Sixty-Three? of -Four?