Laundry poem

WAITING

Waiting for my laundry to be done

waiting at six thirty in the morning

inside a lonely launderette

am I lonely? That’s a no

but I wonder who sits here after I leave

let us say it’s tomorrow, an old lady

or a venerable Chinese man

both sitting like me watching their clothes

spin and turn and move and flip and flop

they sit there in their last season

I think about books and friends and a drink at the bar

they watch and hope for a word

from some stranger coming in

with a friendly  ‘good morning.’