by Steven Siegelski 

 

are eating take out
playing drill music 
from their hidden 
bluetooth speaker 
right outside the chinese
gourmet kitchen
its pink and blue neon
ramen bowl glowing 
above them. they talk 
taste. one says they 
love broccoli best.
another calls rice
trash and pontificates
on a better deal 

somewhere else. i sit smoking
in front of the laundromat
ten feet or so from them
while my soapy soaked 
clothes make perfect
circles that make no
sense. traffic mills
around the lot. this
wandering of another
friday evening. there’s
trash plastered between
my two bare feet. some 
newsprint advertisement
with a woman’s face
and her generic smile. 

glancing between 
the lot and this trash 
melding with the concrete 
i remember being
passionate about
things like chinese
food, hunger and knowing.
my butt is down
to the filter and i cant
help but to suck it 
down once more 
blue smoke turning 
bluer against the change 
in tinder. i wanna feel 
like a bad boy again and
flick it off into the lot
like i used to. but i notice
it hurts somewhere
beneath my sternum
each time i do that.
so i just put it out
on the bench 
shove it in my pocket. 

the teenagers are dispersing 
and wander off laughing 
and yelling above the hidden
bluetooth. their voices fade 
into what empty space resides 
in the wake of an f150 
blaring down the highway 
beyond them. trees green
at last line the county road. 

from their darkening 
form pollen creeps 
out riding the cool air 
that moves into
my silence, this world. 

my stomach gurgles 
and the memory 
of hunger returns. 

glancing back
i notice my 
washer has 
two minutes
left and 

for now i have
nowhere to go
nothing to do.