Neil Carpathios

Tipton Poetry Journal – Spring 2021

Laundromat

Neil Carpathios

Let us pretend that we do not care about our separate lives. That we do not

for a single second imagine each other’s dingy apartments, the lightbulb dangling

by a cord above the kitchen table, flickering, almost dead. That we do not spy on

each other’s clothes, the clues they might give, that we do not peek at what someone

is reading as shirts and undies cartwheel behind dryer windows. Let us pretend not to

eavesdrop on the woman cursing someone on her phone, seething in the corner,

dreadlocks like angry snakes writhing from her skull. That we do not wonder

who, if any of us, is in love or ever was. Let us pretend while we’re here

that we could never know each other, that we’re not all related, having millions

of years ago sprung from the same spore. Let us just go about the business of counting

coins, pouring detergent, folding sweatshirts and searching for the perennial missing sock.

Neil Carpathios is the author of six full-length poetry collections and various chapbooks. Currently, he is Writer-in-Residence at Malone University in Canton, Ohio.