saturday, april 5
3am / bird
the IHOP is busy
as these things go
four cops in one corner
more sobriety in the whole place than
i expect at this time of night
at this end of the week
the waitstaff are running a little ragged
i never did get my little rack of
hot sauce ketchup and whatnot
fuck it the coffee tastes good
tastes like the american middle west
like the air did the other day in the
morning with the foothills
all gone behind the fog
that night i left work and
went out to start my car in the parking
lot and this huge grey bird
unfolded himself from the near bank
of this scum-green pond that sits
in the dull center of our dull light-
industrial office park attracting
waterfowl to shit on the sidewalks
and tempt the muskrats
all winter long
and maybe it's a sign of my recent growth
as a person that as much as i thought about
thinking about this moment as a metaphor for something,
or at least pretending to in some poem
in the end
i like it better as a bird.