Yesterday



A long laundromat hour, an old fade,
a familiar slide of time;
soap in boxes, machines of it;
a sign begs, "Keep this place clean."
Outside, the bars are so wetly lit in their
silent huddled storefronts;
electric buses pass by in the rain
with their peculiar leviathan sound
noising the night.
Electricity hums along wires
strung above the street, fine web of wire.
I wait to be inhabited. smoothing laundry,
feeding the tumbling with coins, buses swim
along the street, sighing those metal sighs.
There isn't a thing I do today
that does not have your name written, sounded into it;
sounds like something maybe looking for air,
breaching above the wetness,
maybe calling a name
out into that dark, folding sky.






April 2002 © Jesse B. Castaldi