Resurrection purgatory in the laundromat

Behind me, a man retrieves waterfalls

of coins from a vending machine while

laundry owners fold cloth, hold a crying baby.

I’m across the street from a restaurant

we drove to in the haze of motion meant to

anticipate grief—gallons of water, a burnt

quesadilla. What else could I need? Nothing

to recall but the sheer clarity of sky and its

distance from me, pulling out of the parking

lot unaware how effortlessly gloomy it could be

today—dark, imminent, Christian pop music

serenading. A pamphlet beside my chair asks,

What happens when you die? above a cemetery

image, clouds so yellow in the gray like stomach

lining in a porcelain bowl. Little paper icicles

hang from the air vents—the only Christmas

decoration in here. I strain my eyes to watch

the clothes topple around until the black spaces

become a Jesus face in a pan, moving too fast

and a woman folds a sheet for her reflection

in the glass. Will you roll around heaven all day

with nothing to do for eternity? asks the pamphlet.

The waiting is not the hard part—it’s the let

down, infinite coins spilling out of a metal

mouth, a penny for my dead to sprout from

the ground. Bring them flesh, I want the laundry

gods to tell me. Water them, color in the edges

I can’t imagine faded—the world they left

with a heavy clanging. All my life I’ve resisted

prayer, fearing flames, finality, growth—

nothing like this spotless hell.