---
title: When I'm sorry I wash dishes
genre: verse

project:
    title: Autocento of the breakfast table
    css: autocento
...

Your casserole dish takes the longest: \
it has some baked-in crust from when you \
cooked chicken last night.  Washing it \
allows me to think about this poem's title \
and the first few lines.  Now that I've \
written them down, I've [forgotten the rest][].

While scraping at something with my finger- \
nail, I catch myself wondering again whether \
you'll thank me for washing your dishes.  \
I realize that this would defeat the point \
of my gesture, that this has destroyed \
all good thoughts I've had about saying

"I'm sorry."  This, [this is the reason][] why \
I am always apologizing: because I never \
mean it, because there is always, in [some \
attic][attic], a thought roaming that says, insists: \

"I've done nothing wrong, and I deserve \
all I can take, and more than that."

[this is the reason]: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/1703/
[forgotten the rest]: elegyforanalternateself.html
[attic]: real-writer.html