At some point during the midnight hour,

A very tired gentleman,

Listens carefully,

(And fearfully)

To the mechanical hum,

Of the dryer tumbling slowly.

And just as he dips his toes into soggy puddles of distant dreams,

A turbulent whistling,

Whispers through the walls.

(And his incoherent ears)

Combined concurrently,

With the ever-so-faint

Ticking of the clumsy dryers

Wonderfully inaccurate dial.

(An apparent, yet distant cousin to the egg timer)

And a chorus of chores is born.

A symphony of starch.

This lint-less lullaby.

Delicately drying his wet and wrinkled brain.

As notes of lavender and wild cotton ambush his airways

And perpetrate his perspective.

And remind him,

(Whilst his soul is still sleeping quietly behind his own shut eyes)

That he had dried a shirt,

Whose only aspiration it had always been,

To be hung

(And treated)

Just the same,

As some of the more fortunate sweaters.