Washing women as recipients of prophecy

Malachiyahu comes back to the launderers

who gather their boiling vats around the ruins

of the city. “He’s back!” the women cry.

Their sleeves are rolled up past the elbows,

dresses knotted at the knees as they sweat

and stir and sweat and stir. Malachiyahu 

chuckles and pulls back his hair, starts

slicing soap bars so thick it comes off

in flakes the size of Passover bread.

“What news today?” he asks.

“The temple has been finished!” one says.

“My sister has finally made it back with her family”

says another. “No word from my father,”

sighs another. It takes decades to leave Babylon

behind. Decades more to stir and sweat

over earth that was salted behind you.

“What news from Yahweh?” the women ask.

Malachiyahu holds up a stained shirt.

He drags the tough soap across it, saying

“Like a launderer’s soap, God will cleanse

you. Like the mortar beneath you, 

God will build you. Like the sun

above you, God will blister and peel you

and stir you in vats until you emerge

spitting soap and can stand on your own.”

The fatherless woman, the one with no words

to spare, flushed with heat hums and clicks

her tongue. “Sounds like a love story to me.”

She does not defend her words, doesn’t need

to, because the women know what she means.