Lines Written in a Laundromat

I had a request for this, from my good friend Lissa, who once gave me a quarter in a laundromat and commissioned me to write a poem for her.

These are empty crossroads
where people come
not to live or stay
and no shattered fears or transformed dreams
have broken on the glass
or whirled around in the rhythmic electric cycle
of clothing rebirth.

There is nothing alive about this place.
The wooden and cinder block cyril blue walls
and tawdry tables
and uniform lines of steel machines dully shining
flipping the colored cloth on its head
synchronized with furious little fans
are dead, and a cry
to the unaesthetic heart of those who think in practical ways
in this country—And yet
humanity has trickled through
or welled, like a side-eddy
(The little rich and smally housed
and really alive).
I wonder at the tales
and wish I could have known the faces
the lives so full, that came, and left this place empty.
In the silence their silence is heard—
their faces were as blank as those dryers
as uniform, perhaps.
We wash our clothes
our hearts we take away unchanged.

In this,
humanity’s berth,
well worn,
we sit as strangers
passing through
as others have,
one or two in the trickle that washed the cyril blue
walls with remembered moments
not worth counting but
remembering
and recalling like the tumble of
brilliant faded clashing
garments that bring beauty
going round
and round
because they must.

And then we go.

1998/99