Releasing the Grip

I slipped out to the garden where a steel clothesline stretched taut between two weathered posts. Clamped along the wire, five wooden clothespins bit firmly into empty air with spring-loaded teeth, waiting to trap whatever was hung before them. I climbed onto an overturned wooden crate to meet their level. Reaching up with both fuzzy hands, I pinched the lever of the first pin. Snap. The jaws parted, and it plummeted into the damp clover below. One beat, two beats. I moved down the line, releasing each spring in measured cadence until the wire shivered bare in the morning light. I clapped twice in quiet satisfaction. It takes so little effort to strip something of what it clings to so desperately.