You can barely interpret a newspaper
at this hour; your bleary eyes strain just
to grapple the itinerary of your morning
never mind the good news on the cereal box
How hateful, the tidy ritual of a workday
the way it intercepts the lazy loll of Sunday
that luscious miasma of unplanned hours, such a
brief span to unplug your rational self’s malaise
Yet you gird yourself up: a patriarch, resolved
setting aside the mustard sting of your stoutness
with your tenderly nibbled bagel
Shuffle the paper again, it gets clearer
with coffee, with absorbed adult bustle
with the rolling acumen of significant thoughts
Just outside the window, if you’d look
frayed tatters of cotton puffs tease the stately sun
in whispered taunts of celerity, mere schoolchildren
Brushing away the crumbs ringing your plate, I
stifle an impulse to mimic the clouds caress –
Relax, dear heart, your authority is unquestionable; it
only feels like a test, this cold murder in Monday
