the last american tough guy?
at the job
one of them comes over
for the bathroom key
doesn’t find it and sighs
guess i’ll wait,
they say
i tell them there’s
another bathroom downstairs
yeah…but steps,
they say
i think about how i’m fifty-one
and walk five miles to work each day
just to try and keep myself in shape
i just nod and say
uh-huh
and we let it go at that
the one who spends his day
doing nothing but watching tv online
he tells me
don’t look for me here tomorrow
i need a mental health day
i think about how my wife
got diagnosed again with breast cancer in march
how neither she nor i
have slept right in months
the double mastectomy
the chemotherapy she’s trudging through
all the sick time and vacation time
that she and i have lost
i look at this little worm
and nod and say
uh-huh
i look around this place
full of teenagers
and other degenerates
who’ve wasted their summer
playing murder games online
or shooting junk in the dirty shitters here
and think about how
when i was a kid
we got thrown outside at dawn
and didn’t come back until dinner
all the fistfights and wiffle ball games
getting lost in thorn-bush filled woods
i look around
at this circus full of wimps
at pissy pants still waiting for the bathroom key
at mental health day
streaming another downloaded show
and i tell myself
you must be the last american tough guy
but no one cares about your plight old man
and i nod
and say
uh-huh
to that too.
No comments:
Post a Comment