the laundry room

is there a place

worse

than the apartment laundry

room.

the wet clothes

lugged

across the frozen grass

to the metal

door and in

where the cages are,

holding

boxes

and bicycles,

plastic christmas trees.

lean and bent,

still full of tinsel

and ornaments.

a  fist full of quarters

are fed

into the rusting white

machines.

detergent.

and then the long wait

as it rumbles

and spins.

shakes on it's unbalanced

feet, then thunders home

with still wet clothes.

next the dryer and another

hour of waiting,

of reading a book you'll

never finish,

sitting in the folding chair

left behind

by a tenant who died

last week.