Orbit of the Spin Cycle

Before sunrise the laundromat glows on the corner, a basement of white light and blue detergent. Windows fog with the breath of machines, each drum turning a small weather system.

Socks lift and fall like minnows in a jar, shirts unbutton themselves into pale flags. Coins clatter down the throat of the change machine, and the room listens with its metal ears.

Outside, buses hiss through wet streets, but here the floor shines like a held note. A woman folds a sweater into a square of calm, as if teaching the fabric how to remember a body.

When the cycle ends, silence arrives warm and damp. Steam loosens from the lids like startled ghosts. I carry home the clean weight of ordinary things, bright as a moon just laundered from the dark.