1.
A laundromat is like a greyhound bus
Calistoga old people town they come for the mud baths
They do not come to the laundromat being retired from PG&E
And the like they have washers and dryers of their own
Old people you see in laundromats are special the old ladies
Always sit quietly hands folded always smiling at the children
No matter how snotnosed here and there you see some grizzled
Duffer carry out his cardboard box full of yellowed underwear
Up the coast Mendocino soap spilled on the floor caked
In the cracks between the machines no attendant in the towels
Fresh damp smell of the sea busy dirty lady artists hippies
Skin divers everybody real friendly
Corvalis where I let that yahoo attendant talk
me into
Putting a wool rug in the wash greasy blond hair still ducktailed
Pink sports shirt collar up told me he’d been in the
carry-in
Laundry business ten years and besides him and his wife had
a rug
Just like that they always threw it in the wash because he
Still looked like all the boys I ever went to high school
with
I let myself get talked into shrinking the hell out of a good
rug
In Colorado saw a hand-lettered sign
Do not put dirty diapers in the machines! Dirt means shit!!
Always wanted to send that one in to Reader’s Digest
Or someplace
Twin falls all those farm women not really on
the farm just
The outskirts of town curlers white sleeveless blouses and
Bermuda shorts even the 180 pounders and the ones with varicose
veins
Big fat faces pig eyes pop bottle mouths blond kids drooling
Tootsie rolls little wet hands grabbing for those mashed
Potato thighs whining for gum held a baby for a woman while
she
Took clothes from the washer to the dryer the little bastard
Wet his pants on my lap
Ogden a Swede from Minnesota retired custodian night attendant
Grey shirt gray pants long washday gray face had a silver
Clump of keys admitted one time half the keys didn’t
fit anything
Used to a certain weight tugging at his belt
He like to fish to pass time pretended I liked to fish, too.
In Reno the old blonde babe at the laundromat
Looked a little like Ingrid Bergman
She had a classy air about her nodded g’morning
When you came in could go back and get your drycleaning
Without having to ask your name guess it made her feel like
She had a lot of friends she was a boozer the spongy skin
Red scrawl of blood vessels broken across her nose and cheeks
A dead giveaway a couple other women worked there and a skinny
guy looked like a fry cook ran the mangle at Christmas baked
a
spice cake
Plus a note that said for your coffee break Merry Christmas
They all thanked me at least a couple time over
Did my wash there a whole year
2.
night wash night
off a freeway exit services available night no cars laundromat
sitting by itself like a deserted grange inside grim as a
city hall
bare light bulb clanking throwing sound of a single pair of
pants
thrown and thrown against the wall of a funhouse tube
it was a long time ago that crazy boy and I were travelling
on a bike but I was in that laundromat alone I was in that
bright
white building at night somewhere in California like a praying
shaker in a white meeting house or like an unwed mother at
night
at the door of a great white mansion or a hospital yes a hospital
when I undid the bundle of dirty clothes there was a baby
wailing
to be in that soiled place so I did a wash and I put the baby
in a bundle of towels and softly bundled clean sheets and
put all
this in the dryer and put the dryer on spin and the baby spinned
away
away into the night small and humming a space capsule humming
out through the night through the Milky Way
but I was left in that place where the pants clanked against
the wall
of a tin tube I was left like a Chinese Sisyphus washing and
washing
and washing alone.
3.
washday blues
the old Maytag chugged and wheezed like a fat grandma
going up stairs
smell clean rubber and Oxydol
mother’s little helper
wind blowing sage and wild peach
will I ever make my bed in such clean sheets again?