A Chevy gold Suburban with twenty-two-inch rims
propelled by bass and a Laundromat
past which it drives make me feel
most at home. The transient 18-wheelers
and white collar white boys pass through
as powdery ghosts and what I see
are the regulars in their green Buicks,
Pontiacs, and other good-ol’ solid-steel construction
bouncing on chrome, spinning.
Most of them visit the Laundromat,
which opens early, closes late.
A laundry soap opera plays out in the parking lot
with a supporting cast from the gas station
next door. The prices on the sign begin with “1”
and end with blank spaces where red plastic numbers
were changed daily, eight years ago.
The people who fill up here fill up
on more than just gasoline.
My neighbor told me today,
as she cleaned her Mercedes,
that once she won a gallon
of Crown Royale in a game of dominoes
against a big man with a big truck in Alexandria.
The traffic shakes my pier and beam house.
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