Unclaimed

Nine on Cedar. Half the chairs

empty. Lint and heat.

A man folded his daughter's shirts

so carefully it felt indiscreet.

A woman loaded dryer four

and left. The cycle ended. Gone.

Forty minutes, then a stranger

opened the drum and carried on —

folded each piece, stacked the pile

on the plastic table. Warm. Exact.

The kind of care you give a thing

when the owner won't come back.

I left at ten. The pile still there,

tended and unclaimed.

I keep thinking about the hands

that touched what they couldn't have named —

somebody's shirt. Somebody's

ordinary Tuesday clothes.

The stranger smoothed the collar flat.

The dryer cooled. The laundromat closed.