The System

The man was sorting coins at midnight,

quarters separate, dimes, nickels, pennies—

a system he moved through without looking,

his hands knowing what they knew,

and I watched longer than I should have.

I recognized something. The set of his shoulders,

the way he wasn't wasting movement,

the efficiency of someone who'd done this

a thousand times in a thousand laundromats,

all identical, all fluorescent,

all designed to be forgotten.

How many times have I been here?

Thirty? Fifty? Enough to know

the washers' sound, the hum,

the way the light makes everything

temporary, makes even regulars look

like they're passing through.

The coins caught the light—bright flashes,

metal sound. He was building

a ritual in a temporary space,

making meaning out of the mundane,

returning to a place designed

to be forgotten, to be anonymous,

and I thought about what that means,

about how we anchor ourselves

to places that aren't meant to hold us,

how we create systems out of

the spaces we're supposed to move through

without noticing.

But maybe that's the point.

Maybe that's how you survive the waiting—

you notice everything. You build

a system. You know the light

is always the same.