He skipped the line
A woman ordering a sandwich. what type of bread
Indecisive but also confused
The clerk already holding a pack of cigarettes to him
He replied 2 with his stained fingers
The clerk fired up the money machine
as he spoke to someone else invisible
In a foreign land Perhaps
just on the other side of town
The clerk returns to the girl
Ready to now give her attention
Sourdough
april is national poetry month. each morning i receive the Poem-a-Day. i don’t always read them. i may have shared one or two. i came back to this place and noticed that the last few posts were lyrics, verse. time to get back to writing.
in high school i fancied myself a slam poet — it was on trend at the time. there was a movie. slam poetry was accessible to a teenager growing up in the city at a particularly diverse school. it was necessary for a teenager with tension and oppression and privilege at a particularly diverse school. i was invited to read at various events, always standing out but also fitting in. we were all angry. we were all connected. we were all alone. we spoke the same love language.
this is one of the many places i learned to read a room. read each person, as if i’d known them for years. read them cover to cover. understand what they needed. understand where we connected; observe even the faintest touch: translucent linens, hanging out to dry on a hazy, sunny morning. just a whisper and i could find the passable bridge.
this has come in handy. this has crippled me. too much all at once separates soul from body from mind from present from past. the future happens, directionless. it has come in handy: promotions, friends, safety, efficient code switches.
poetry. i had to write a poem today for work. the “spring cleaning” newsletter. i searched for “cleanse poems” and “poem purification” and “cleansing quotes” and the algorithm served were verse and rants from holistic healers peddling new life through multi-day programs and righteous theists speaking of rebirth. are these people different? some say not really.
positively spring
winds rush through my soul lifting
my spirit. relief!
the third time rinse and repeat a lifetime for a year a lifetime for labor from labor a lifetime for now at which point do the scales tip your server do the scales tip to a lifetime in the other direction three hundred at least have heard me shout from in side the box (a lifetime of labor) maybe this time i'll make it to 74
