‘A Case for Mondays’
I try my best
to push time through my pen,
working through phrases
in my driveway
outside my place,
hungry and afraid
to pull the handle.
If I collapse into my couch,
watching Scandal
or some other neutered Netflix series
passing itself off as intellectual
with covert political intentions,
I’ll never be mentioned
in a sentence
with art.
I do feel stolen from—
minutes mugged,
so I lock the driver’s side
and glance between mirrors.
Seeing nothing but my face,
I put the car in neutral,
rolling back
down the hill
and over the sidewalk.
Lost,
another series
going nowhere.
Praying for a T-bone,
I hit the brakes,
screaming in Soprano—
mistakes and mishaps—
and the scene goes black.
It’s red meat on Monday,
and my lady waits.
We don’t watch TV
anymore—it’s not in vogue.
We don’t read magazines—
coffee table propaganda.
We break stanzas,
sharing this pen,
dripping ink
like a Rorschach test,
and we find elephants
standing in the room with us.
Writing and rhyming,
reading between ivory tusks,
never forgetting
to waggle our trunks.
It’s an oasis,
and the world’s parched,
cracking lips
like risen starch,
and we don’t eat carbs
much
on Mondays.
That’s for Tuesdays,
when we eat baguette
and rewatch House of Cards
after I scribble in my car,
counting every hour
for the week to begin again.
-N&A
