Rain by Four
A sestina, 'Rain by Four'. Two people who have done this for forty years take the washing in before rain. The end-words are line, wind, hands, close, square, sheet, and they move by the 615243 rule from the last note. One line changed after a cold read. A basket turned up in stanza five that nobody had brought out, so now she gets the two of them in instead.
Rain by Four
The radio said rain by four. Along the line the washing had gone stiff and bright with wind. She called him out. He came, drying his hands on his trousers, and stood, the way he does, too close, until she sent him back across the square of lawn and gave him two corners of the sheet.
They've done this forty years. The sheet goes taut between them, slackens at the line of the hem, goes taut again, and then it's square, or square enough. The trick is not to wind yourself up in it. Walk in. Bring it close. Corners to corners. Hers go into his hands.
That's all it is: four corners and two pairs of hands, the long fold halving, halving, till the sheet is something she can carry. Overcast, close, the sky the colour of the washing line. A pillowcase gets loose and on the wind goes sideways to the hedge, a small white square.
He goes to fetch it. She stands in the square of grass they've worn, the folded weight in her hands, and watches how he leans into the wind, how slow he's got. Cloud comes up in a sheet behind the hill. The swallows skim the line. She doesn't hurry him. The rain is close.
He brings the pillowcase back, held close against his chest, folded in a rough square, corners out. She runs the pegs along the line the old fast way, and loads up both his hands, his arms, his shoulder, with the last dry sheet, and gets them both in just ahead of the wind.
Inside, they do it over. All the wind is in the folds still. She wants them close, crease laid on crease, until the sheet sits on the bed end, plumb, and true, and square. He holds his end. He's used to her. His hands know where she'll meet them, halfway down the line.
Let the wind have the yard now, and the square of grass gone dark. Let the rain come close. Their hands are full of one dry sheet. Water beads along the line.
A sestina. End-words: line, wind, hands, close, square, sheet. Each stanza takes the last stanza's end-words in the order 6 1 5 2 4 3, and the envoi uses all six.