What It's Like to Fall Asleep in Your Local Laundromat

Gradually, each drone drops

its toes into the background, you

are slumping and–wait this isn't–

so you're back upright, watching

the rinse cycle splash blue-purple soap

playfully like a group of toddlers

passing your glasses back and forth

and look someone else wears your frames,

they glare and you want to say something

but they've left, leaving a bowl of

glistening blackberries so plump you

could live in one of its dimples,

build a house of twigs, marry a berry-

woman, and when the kids come inside

covered with kickball dust you smell

their hair so sweet like blackberries and

load their little clothes and selves into

the station wagon toward the laundromat

where they beg for quarters for the

machine that drops gumballs down and

down little plates with gumball-sized holes

until reaching the gumball-sized door

that clinks and tugs you back each time

you've slumped in your plastic seat, your

legs numbing from your accidental posture.

Photo by Romain Robe on Unsplash