The streets are alive with up-lit red brick walls
on one of those evening when you take a mental note
that daylight’s lasting longer than the short days of late,
bookended by stretched nighttime.
The platform’s calmer for once,
the crowds are cuddling some place else
and you shaved five minutes off your clocking off time
so don’t care that the station’s boards reveal
a five minute wait.
The businessman’s black eye gives you as much to think about
as the school kid doing some kind of subconscious ritual
with every finger on each hand.
He presses one at a time into the center of his palms
like the world will stop if he just lets them hang.
By now you’re but a segment away from letting your feet sip
the air of your soft platform march towards a couple of blocks
you alternate the days on which you walk home.
Variety follows that outstretch with the opening of
fridge and freezer draws.
Chillies get mixed into leafy stumps of broccoli
and there’s no telling what colours the stripes on your straw in
the glass of iced orange juice will be this evening,
or the articles you’ll read
and documentaries you’ll flick through for any matter.
Sleep’s as much a mystery as everything around us
when wearing some sets of glasses.
Never mind tomorrow.
It shrinks with every premature play you feed it
before the starting gun’s even been loaded with history’s paint.