I’m sitting at a booth

In a laundromat

On Broadway.

Today there is a heat wave

In New York. 

An air-conditioned space

Crowded with fat ladies

Is a good place to be.

It makes thinking easier:

I know

That you won’t call

And not because you’re busy.

We both knew

My speech about Germanic men

Applied to you as well,

My eagle-eyed friend,

But we pretended otherwise.

I am so used to this

That it feels acceptable,

Like an old scar that hurts

A little

When it’s damp.

I must have thought

It would be different.

But how.