Towels

(Inspired by the mysterious disappearance of one)

Large, small, hand, wash
rough, plush,
frayed, coiffed,
towels travel
upstairs,
downstairs,
from the bathroom
to the kitchen
to the barn,
the Y.

They lose their color
in repeated washes,
and their softness
with regular use.
The edges fray and drag
onto wet floors, into muddy tracks,
the bathtub.

The fiber acquires
suspicious sheds
of white, black, and brown-striped
hair from the felines
who consider towels
to be their empty nests.

They wipe bodies,
soap, toothpaste scum,
dishes, bike grease clean.
In the wash, they come out
looking almost new.

Three, four days a week,
a towel lands in my gym bag,
and travels with me to the Y,
where it is carried like a neglected baby
into the pool area,
toward the hot tub,
where it is hung carelessly
on a hook.

I soak in the hot tub,
softening the goosebumps
on my skin,
warming my perpetually
frozen fingers.
Then I lower myself into the cool pool,
and swim.

Tonight I swam long,
fifty-five minutes,
one mile minus ten yards.
When I returned to the hot tub,
two young women were hanging lovely striped towels
on the hooks
where my faded, worn down contribution
should have been.

I looked around, perplexed.
My husband gestured to another towel,
pink, faded to a dirty white,
ragged at the bottom,
hanging from a hook,
not mine.

I brought a purple one tonight,
I asserted.
My husband rolled his eyes
as a woman in the hot tub
chortled loudly.
Take that one, she says.
It's a Ralph Lauren,
all yours.

It's ours,
my husband said.
Faded, ragged, used.
I touched it.
Too soft, too plushy,
not ours.

If it's a Martha Stewart,
you'll know it's not yours,
the woman giggled,
enjoying the queen of drama's
ethical dilemma.

I stared at the ragged edge,
felt the chlorine drying on my skin,
and threw ethics out of the window.
It's a Ralph Lauren,
it's not mine,
but mine is missing,
so that one's mine now.

All yours now.
The lady of the jacuzzi
smiles and giggles,
wondering what new mystery
might unfold as I sink my body
into the hot tub,
wondering where, how, when
and why my towel
disappeared to.