this is my body

I opened the dryer door and it smelled of something burned, like the charred edges of parchment paper left too long in a hot oven. When I reached in to pull the pile of clothes out, I burned a blister into the tip of my middle finger. The pain made the skin tighten under the hairs at the base of my skull.

The Laundromat was empty. Things were wrong and broken all day and I did the washing just to be out of the house and moving around in the cold air. I shouted a volley of obscenities for the orange plastic chairs, all bolted together along the wall, and the change-making machines by the window. I kicked the dryer, one in a long line of see-through circle-eyes, and it gave a low rattle and shake in the humming room.

I cursed as I pulled jeans out and burned myself on rivets and zippers, invisible fires buried in the soft fabric of faded underpants and old tee-shirts with holes in the armpits. Prickly sweat rose and pooled on my chest. My anger grew. Finally I got the load out and threw the heavy bag into the car, the smell not of fresh, clean laundry, but something from the kitchen, prepared improperly, and spreading.

[Photo Knox Laundromat by Kay Westhues, 1995]