This year will be the twentieth anniversary of San Diego City WorksPress. In the lead-up to this and the publication of Sunshine/Noir III: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana (in 2025), The Jumping-Off Place will be featuring some of the highlights from City Works Press’s many publications.
The poem “Woman with Starch” by Wayne Lee appeared in City Works Press’ anthology Lavandería: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash and Word edited by Donna J. Watson, Michelle Sierra, and Lucia Gray-Kanga.
She presses her dresses and blouses each night. My bachelor’s habit has been to dump my crumpled shirts behind a closet door till all my clothes are piled high and finally I’m forced to iron them myself. She sprays with starch her pants and skirts, then toils till each is folded neat as an envelope and fine as origami. I was raised to believe that starch was found only in Idaho potatoes and Uncle Ben’s Converted White Rice. She tells of times in the Philippines, of ironing by candlelight on the family verandah, of life without electricity or running water, of afternoons spent sweating in the houses of the powerful, of fueling her iron with glowing embers from the coal-burning stove, careful not to scatter ashes on the cotton sheets or undergarments, of pleating flat the seams on the draperies and mosquito netting till the veins along the tops of her hands stood out like mangrove roots. I have usually flattened my wrinkled slacks in front of a Sunday morning football game, till all the crooked lines conformed more or less like pulling guards in a Green Bay power sweep. Then I’ve hung them on the bedroom closet where all my shirts and trousers hang, marginally neater than they were before. She speaks of tricks of the trade, of home-made mixtures of corn starch and boiling water, of stirring in the blue then soaking all the whites, of drying them quickly in the equatorial sun, of taking them down before the daily deluge strikes, of sprinkling, folding, rolling, dexterous as a cigarette girl, of wrapping up her laundry in dampened towels, laying it down in wicker baskets, making sure to keep it moist. I have used, when I’ve ironed at all, a yard sale Sunbeam handed down through generations of neglect, jury-rigged with tape and glue, ever since the day I knocked it to the floor as the clock ran down in a playoff game between the Packers and Colts. I’ve long made do with an ironing board lopsided as a logger with a wooden leg, rejected by everyone with common sense yet good enough for my particular expertise. I’ve bought, when I’ve bothered to shop at all, mostly fabrics advertising permanent-press. “You iron as you meditate,” she says. “You listen daily to the radio dramas or the Filipino music. Then, when you have finished your work, your foster mother lets you play outside with friends as your reward.” She presses her dresses and skirts each night. I iron when the mood is right or when I find I’ve nothing left to wear. But I’ll master this craft when my mind is clear. I’ll work to smooth the small parts first— the collar, then the cuffs and sleeves— eventually the back and front of every piece. Tomorrow, in fact, I may just go and buy myself a can or two of starch—just in case some day a playoff game is on the air and inspiration blitzes through my head like a red-dog safety and sacks me flat as a flap along the inside seam of my consciousness.