A LAUNDROMAT FIT FOR A QUEEN

A look-alike Libarace,

with all the glitz and glamour

of the cherubic charmer himself,

he does a pas de deux

between the washer and drier

to retrieve his underwear.

To the tune of “Jimmy Crack Corn,

he sang slightly off key, “I’ve got

Hashimotos thyroditis,

and I don’t care.”

I watched him apply fire-red nail polish

to his fingernails,

and purplish-blue paint to this toes.

His soul was in his face,

and he could have been a defrocked priest.

He raved about how this Laundromat

in the Embarcadero was bed-bug-free,

having explored the “Lavanderia,”

“Jazz Wash,” “Get The Funk Out,”

and the “Missing Sock Laundromat.”

I wondered about this man,

but then I remembered

waking up the first morning

in the barracks of Fort Dix

and meeting soldiers in the latrine

who were all applying mascara

while harmonizing Doo-Wop.

They fought as hard as anyone else

when waves of Chinese

descended upon us at the Yalu River in ’51.