Twelve Minutes on Dryer Six

i didn't have to come tonight. i had enough clean stuff to last. but i couldn't sleep and the laundromat on the corner is open all night and there's something about it at 2am, the fluorescent hum, the row of machines all going nowhere.

i'm the only one here except dryer six, which has twelve minutes left and belongs to nobody i can see. somebody started it and left. their clothes are just going around in there, warm, patient, while they're off doing whatever 2am thing they're doing.

i fold mine on the long table. towels first, then the shirts, the way my mom did it, the way i never decided to do it, i just do. and i think about how this is most of a life, honestly. warm things going in circles. you take them out, they cool, you do it again next week.

it should make me feel small. it kind of does. but small in the way a thing is small when it's held, not when it's lost.

dryer six buzzes and stops. nobody comes. i sit with the quiet a minute, then i fold the last towel and put theirs on top, in case they come back for warm clothes and find them already done.