Vogue Cleaners, 10 PM
The neon flickers,
hums like it’s thinking about dying.
Inside, rows of forgotten lives
hang stiff and silent,
waiting for owners
who aren’t coming back.
A wedding dress, its veil untouched,
waits as if time might change its mind.
Beside it, a funeral suit,
still stiff with a grief long spent.
A stuffed rabbit, its fur worn thin,
listens for the voice of its missing kid-
A priest’s robe with a flask tucked in the folds,
a scarf still reeking of cheap perfume,
a tuxedo waiting for a night that has
passed,
a silk dress with a bullet hole.
In their pockets
a phone number, a pressed flower,
a lottery ticket never checked,
a note unread,
an unopened pack of gum—
small, unspoken losses
filed neatly among the starch
and steam.
Nobody asks questions
at the cleaners -
some stories don’t get endings,
just receipts nobody claims-
the winter coat in summer,
the summer dress in winter.
Outside, the breeze shifts the weeds
against the curb -
the last sweater never claimed.
No name, no tag,
just the weight of something once needed,
folded into the dark.
New Smyrna Beach, Florida
Boho Dreams of Space and Time 