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