Taxi to the Laundromat

TAXI TO THE LAUNDROMAT / Judith Root Rows of washers stare, blink in the flap of a sleeve. Between cycles your mother watches As the World Turns and sips gin from a waxed cup. Like a miner's headlamp, her swollen eye leads her face, the bruise spreading into her collar. You want to collapse in foam as the ladies watch your pocked face pale as sheets churning in bleach. They stick a curl with a painted nail, fan their taunt into a beat their platform toes can tap. You've got a hole in your pants. Clap, clap. You've got uh high waters. Clap, clap. You've got a hole in your pants. You've got uh high waters. This time you wish yourself spun dry, clean enough for them to see through and out front past the Summer Sale 25c sign to the cab and the next green light. 28 ¦ The Missouri Review ...