so take all you want, I say, to the day,
as I sit on the stoop and go through
a list in my head.
already read today's Times,
and ate eggs with orange honey bacon.
gotta write back to the dude from Strand,
and then call the boss about the Iowa property,
and then look up venues in St. Louis
for a poetry show I am putting together,
and then work on both of the screenplays,
while simultaneously editing the novel,
on which one of the scripts is based.
for a moment, I smoke and watch, through Ray Bans,
the waves of the world, all flowing like freight
to a destination unknown, even if it is known;
so many unknown possibilities,
so many unsown opportunities, all living
or dying on vines and arms and pages.
I was sick yesterday, so I took it easy,
but today I woke up early, had some tea before the sun rose,
and watched television in the dark.
I'll be tired early tonight.
I am supposed to go to a concert, but I will probably bail.
I will write away a majority of the afternoon,
avoiding social media and other distractions
of the foul year of forever, 2019.
now I have the power to find my place.
starting anew on a Wednesday noon
is like catching a fish and throwing it back,
allowing that fish to see his (or her) friends
and tell the story of how it got caught up
in that other world, where there is no water.
a woman walks by, yelling on her phone.
a kid scoots by, chasing his friends and the future.
a man holds his hands to his belly and stops a hundred yards away
to look down at the sidewalk then turn and go back
to something he forgot or something that made him ill.
I finish my coffee in a dead man's mug and go back inside.