Cora got a man

cora carried two cans

of mountain dew

past me as i flipped

through a three year old

consumer reports magazine

i was reading about

the safety of car seats

i don’t drink no diet

look at me

her cheeks were large earlobes

grey stubble on her chin

in a tiny room

she was ironing shirts for men

who would be back

at 5 to pick them up

i don’t need no diet Mountain Dew

the seniors at the center

round the corner bring em to me

you know de place

the cans were in a ziploc,

hanging like dirty laundry

from her finger tips

tight on the corner of plastic

between us, she says

i am taking them

out to my car

to bring em home

somebody else can drink them there

she’s American but unreadable

even her tongue

could have been from anywhere

south of Fairfax, her eyes, large

i could see that few events

escaped them

i had a question for her

she came back to the little room

the dryers making low booms

with every rotation

the washers gushing rivers

i asked her how long she thought

it would take to dry a comforter

she shook her head

depends on the dryer

she pressed her hand on one

glass door after another

this one’s the hottest

she said, I clinked in my quarters

gambling on the heat

it wasn’t real silence

like movies without sound

behind the machine tumbles

the television murmured accusations

and then a man came in

to the balmy heat

like the kind paid for dearly

in the bahamas

here it is free

cora hands him trousers on hangers

shirts buttoned three times

once at the collar

you early, she says

he took his shirts in piles

gave cora a couple twenties

shit, cora, how’d you get so beautiful

he said. she blushed

you such a liar

the back of him disappeared

behind the smudged glass door

she says to me, see?

don’t need no

diet

nothing