Laundromat, 2 A.M.

The machines hum their tidal vows, a row of moons spinning soapy weather. Someone's flannel turns and turns, folding the same gray question over the lit linoleum.

A man reads the dryer like a fire, watching his week dissolve to lint, his coffee gone cold as the streetlight that leans through the glass and pools at his shoes.

Outside, the avenue keeps its vigil— a bus exhales, a cat threads the dark, the neon stutters its half-name. We are all here for the same reason: to be clean enough to begin again.

When the cycle ends it does not announce it. The drum slows like a thought running out, and the warmth he gathers in both arms is the only thing the night gave freely, still breathing, smelling of almost-home.