Sitting sideways, 

watching clothes tumble 

wrapping herself 

in the soft, delicate 

quiet of midnight 

An old, tired 

man, wrinkles gripping 

his haggard face 

turns sleepily, face blank; 

his breathing, a fight. 

He watches, cold, 

waiting for his shirts, 

his socks, his smock 

praying the artist's paint 

had not bled through blue. 

A Latina girl, 

young, and full of life, 

zipping her eyes,  

this way and then that way, 

never settling. 

She understood 

the cruelty of just 

accepting what 

life thrusted at innocents;  

she will never break. 

She sits, cradled 

against machine and 

man, scribbling her

thoughts, just as always, like 

she was trained to do. 

Three strangers sit, 

and wait for finished 

laundry, muse to 

just themselves in the 

breakable dark, 

in the quiet of midnight.