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…