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Monday - Four Quarters - David McGovern

Torn collegiate black mesh, held together seemingly by habit alone, carried over flip-flopped parquet followed by an uneven boiler room concrete.  The opaque ice cubes stand by the ground level screen-less glass which lets the warm thick air of August and the slithering hiss of January inside.  My livelihood lies in the fifth pocket as the soft right hand rummages for the filthiest and most indispensable of the discarded.

During this grope of necessity I dig up a collection of clothes still heavy with transcontinental recycled air; the breath of travelers, the stories of families ripe with funeral, the purple bagged eyes of those ready for horizontal comfort.  Undershirt of once worn t-shirt still clings, inside out, to its partner.  I smell them for the scent of mine as one who would watch instead of live life, as one under rose bush would raise hand mirror over window ledge to catch a glimpse through woven wire at unknown undressing, as one who would sit in a car eight hours for someone’s smoke break just so he could collect their cigarette butts in a resealable plastic bag, as one who would lay face upon bench still warm from body heat.  I smell nothing but winter’s stench and yesterdays leftover still entrenched in nasal passages.

Shuffling back to write for others, those behind desks in dress suits, high heels, and imported eye-glass frames, who would spend ten minutes on what I’d spent one hundred.  All in all none was of great consequence to me because I am fresh from the shop.  My refrigerator is full of artificially flavored gas injected chasers! 

With contacts out and the topless toilet still mulling over the latest deposit I have decided that counting forward is no longer necessary, this is what calendars, the news, and parents are for.  No reliance on the aforementioned is exercised even though tomorrow is indeed an exercise day.  I cannot wait to fall asleep and eat Wednesday’s cold cereal and watch mid-week’s lukewarm broadcasts.  I’ll fold the laundry tomorrow.