Friday Feature: Deanna Whitlow
- Jae Nichelle
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Deanna Whitlow is the founder of Same Faces Collective. She completed her MFA in Fiction at Columbia College Chicago. Pushcart-nominated, her stories and essays have been published by Raging Opossum Press, Allium Journal, Black Fox Literary, Identity Theory, Mulberry Literary, and others.
The Laundress
And the work
can be beautiful
sometimes. I think
this as I sip coffee
in the darkness
of dawn. I believe
this in the same
tentative, wanting
way I believe
in God.
I look at
my hands.
I have scrubbed
and wrung and
ironed so much
that my hands
are my winter
shade all year
round. The skin
between my
index and middle
finger could pass
the paper bag
test. My palms
itch. There must
be money on
the way.
Yes, the work
is beautiful. I
make things
clean. Like a
pastor. Or a
rushing stream.
I have even
reconciled its
endlessness
because I am
still catching up
on my mother’s
and her mother’s
and her mother’s
mother’s old
burdens.
The ritual
of it is a little
like prayer so
sometimes, the
work itself
is God. And
God is beautiful.
So the work is
beautiful. I smile.
The work is
beautiful, so
I wake earlier
then I need.
Before the
children and
the sun and the
radio evangelists.
I fill my cup,
drink slowly,
and pretend I am
the sort of woman
who gets to wonder
what else there is
to do when
the coffee is
finished.
###
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.
