Susan Vespoli lives in Phoenix where she teaches English at a downtown community college, rides her bike along the canals, and walks her 3-legged dog Jack. Although she is a relative homebody, she loves to travel wherever and whenever she can by foot, car, plane, and/or motorcycle. Her poetry and prose have been published online and in print anthologies and journals.
PLANET LAUNDROMAT
We arrived separately
to stuff our darks and lights
into waiting washers:
the knit capped youth
perched on a folding counter
the family laughing Spanish
the man selling felt dog bobbleheads
from a flat box
and the matron with her bowl cut
watching her tired swirls of fabric
through the wide eye of a dryer
but are all on a mission
to free our belongings
of any trace of us
before we venture out again
into the vast unknown.