Thanksgiving Day, 2008
"Remember?" you ask, over Sunday morning
bloody mary's and Mandy Potemkin's
"Over the Rainbow," your Kim Novak necklace
sparkling over sausages and strawberry-stuffed
waffles as lucsious and delectable as
that summer we spent ourselves on the shore,
hypnotized by the rhythm of the waves,
claret and chablis splashing your skin,
"Remember?" you ask, "our laundramat?"
like lovers who share some sacred poem
whispered, like a prayer, by some erotic
prophet, or some secret sign, or some song,
"our song," some Captain and Tenille ballad
while we shuffle under the gym backboard
and slide across the sawdust in clumsy sweat
and English Leather in darkness, or
"our cafe," that cheap Chinese joint next to
Coney Island hot dogs, our first date
where I first tasted sweet and sour,
Cantonese pineapple, we spilt mustard
on our fingers feeding each other egg rolls,
and rose water!, and fortune cookies we
savored like divine oracles.
Our laundramat! Remember?
Sunday evenings as the sun spread
across the west and the dying river,
all lavender and brassy, we hauled
baskets heaped with sheets and cordouroys
and dangling bra straps from the Electra,
fed the washers with fists of quarters and
powdered soap as darkness bloomed in the
streaked windows and neon Open script,
the candy bar and coffee machines, we
leaned against the machines as they cycled,
the sweet vibrations opening us, like
those fat reducing belts on the Lucy show!,
ridiculous gyrations that shook us silly,
we trembled and hummed, unconscious
to our lives, the tremor in our bones
like bees sleeping and abuzz! As the night
emptied, we moved through the joint like ghosts,
desperate for the warmth from the dryers
and the glass-eyed doors, our oracles!, to
return the heat to our souls. Later
we will drive home in the cool of the night,
cross the river in silence, and unload our lives
for one more week, cheap date!, reaching
into the darkness, neatly folded, still
radiant with out hands smoothing the
wrinkles, preparing ourselves for what is
to come, our laundramat!, our song!, our
children!, our bodies loving and
unloving in time.
