Laundry ...

All's quieter than the halls outside when

We walk into a department store:

The clothes absorb the sound. Soft

And layered by the hundreds. Racks and

Tables, dangling full and pancake-piled,

Absorbing the laughter, the calls out,

The frustrated groan-hum whispers

Between us, the half-dozen

Twenty-somethings in a mall.

That's why we do laundry and

Close the wash-room door:

Not because the cotton goes stale

With sweat and oil under arms, stiffening

Down the back, yellowing the neck,

Blah, blah; not because the metal

Bin clacks against shirt buttons,

Zippers, folded-in change, or

Its own loose joints tapping.

We close that door because the

Sound comes out: along with

Nose drips and mud skids billow the

sobs and Hoo-rahs that vibrated shirts

on their insides; with pasta sauce and semen,

the haranguing Dammits and guttural throat putters

That were cast across table- and bed-sheets; with excess dyes,

all the manic chaos drunken in by an un-racked jacket (drowning out the

half-hearted buyer's Coo in the soft, fading, weekend shirt that wore it home).