laundr - o - mat
$3 wash & dry!
streaky white characters sprawl
across the water-stained window
Creaky machines new decades ago
with bulky grubby chrome bodies
sputter & spin into infinity
A viejita kneads her wrinkled knuckles
& waits for the stains to soak out of her aprons
& wonders how many more laundry days she has left
Dust bunnies & deserted coins endure eternity
under the row of plastic orange chairs
that lines one of the peeling white walls
An informal lost & found forms on a corner chair
a lumpy pile of dry lonely socks
& drier lonelier panties
A mamá clenches her jaw as she refolds
the shirts her wailing child flung onto the linty floor
her back burning from the increasing heaviness of her womb.
A hand scribbled out-of-order sign
stares out from the glass of the vending machine
as another day of its endless guard sun-bleaches its ink.
A chiquita waiting for her princess dress to finally be dry
examines the faded sticker slapped onto the machine
a fat green snake slurping up its own tail
From the silver speakers hung tenuously in each corner
squeak the same dozen decade-old pop songs
accompanied by the endless, echoey drum, drum, drum…