So many girls with highlighted hair
folding their underwear
to the drone of washing machines
neon
and the TV news

Stealthily, I watch
them perform the ritual
baskets full of underwear
with the lingering scent of flesh

So serious
so pretty
and so focused these girls
who don't know me at all
bending over their brimming baskets

A foreign language
foreign bodies
and foreign me
quickly stuffing
his rags
into the washing machine's throat

His chest tightening
alone
and completely naked
the Lithuanian poet