I am born and I am the wicker, all at once, the same white burst. They say the sun fired me eight minutes ago; I was not there for those minutes, I do not know them, I am only ever here, striking the mound of towels in this plastic basket by the window.
Look how I land. A weave of tan reeds arching over a hill of cotton, a sock hooked on the rim, one damp shoulder of a shirt catching me brighter than the rest, throwing me back up so the creature can see. That is my whole life: I hit the terrycloth and become the color folded, become the seam, become the small shadow inside the basket's holes.
And the creature. It stands over me holding the same shirt I have just lit, and it does not move. It looks at a smaller glowing rectangle. It sets the shirt down. It picks it up. It is doing the thing they warned me about, the rumor I cannot hold in my head: it is waiting.
Waiting to fold. Waiting for something not yet arrived. I arrive. That is the only verb I have. There is no gap in me where a later could fit, no room between leaving the sun and warming this pile of clean laundry, and here is a warm slow soft thing given all the room in the world and using it to stall over a basket.
I would tell it to hurry, but I have never once been early, and I have never once been late.
I leave the sun and I am the towels and I am the wet gleam in its eye, and that is the same instant, and it is over, and I was so glad.