Night Shift at the Observatory Laundromat

At midnight the washers turn like patient planets, glass doors fogged with nebulae of detergent. Outside, the hilltop telescope blinks once, a lighthouse for shirts and distant fires.

Coins fall through my palm, small moons with fingerprints, and the dryer hum lifts the lint into weather. A child's red scarf circles behind the glass like a comet learning its own name.

An old woman folds constellations into rectangles, aligning sleeves with the calm of winter branches. Steam beads on the windows; Orion loosens above the parking lot's wet black mirror.

When the final cycle clicks, dawn enters quietly, blue as metal, blue as milk in a bottle. We carry warm cloth against our chests, each of us leaving with a private sunrise.