the everyday things

I can pick out from among the people around me
those whose lives realize my dreams

I need some good news fast
before things get real bad

all the things you think you’re good at
well, you’re not

all the mail that comes
the letters addressed to someone

just outline where someone oughtta be
life like wind happens to me

an incident on a day in a life

When I was twenty two years old I walked down the stairs
to the employee bathrooms and put my left foot up on the toilet seat.

I took out my standard-issue, ergonomic, safety box cutter
and set it for three-ply corrugated fiberboard.

My left leg suffered the twenty four incisions.
My left arm, too, three more.

I rolled down my pant leg, I put on my jacket,
and went back for my remaining seven and one half hours of shift.

After having promised not to do it again,
a few times,

I made a game of writing “suicide” where I would otherwise draw blood
every time I thought to do it.

After writing the word four times in two minutes
I forfeited.

So it came to this, a dull burning on my left inside calf
while I asked passing customers if they needed any help today.