At the Missing Sock Laundromat

At the Missing Sock Laundromat

by Noah Kucij

Some loves end in embalmers’ hands,
in flames, in the jaws of a Florida lake.

You know death-do-us-part’s the game:
you win if two of twenty fingers

rot in rings, if all four eyes
go blind at once like streetside

shutters butchers pull and lock
at dusk. No glory in surviving

long enough to get to know the Missing
Sock, its rows of washers bulky

blank slates save the odd black felt-tip
promise. Nothing noble waiting

for dryer fourteen with a pocket that jangles
with hope scraped together. No love

like the sidelong surmises that litter
these benches and finicky Coke

machines, no clean like the clean of the air
when you’ve taken a few spins and found

yourself somehow still here.