Bending, Grabbing, Sorting

Chinese Laundry
Chicago, 1970

In a storefront laundry
on North Clark Street
brown draperies release
this quiet man

who has my shirts.
He smiles and bows--
how carefully
he wraps them.

Before the draperies
fall back, I see,
for a moment,
in a circle swirling

almost out of sight
three kerchiefed women,
glistening black,
bending, grabbing, sorting.

Donal Mahoney