Laundromat, Midnight

The machines hum their low gospel, porthole windows full of weather— shirts caught mid-tumble like gulls turning over a gray sea.

A man folds towels he will not need until tomorrow, smoothing each crease the way you'd quiet a child, the fluorescent light forgiving nothing, forgiving us anyway.

Outside, the city keeps its bargains. In here, time is measured in quarters, in the slow centrifuge of waiting, in lint gathered like the soft gray snow of everything we've worn too close.

The dryer stops. The drum goes still. For a moment the room holds its breath— then someone gathers an armful of warmth and carries it, glowing, into the dark.