80 years go by like a cloud

she has a
severe haircut
and tends bar
on weekends.
to
supplement her
income.
to make some more
money.
she wears a
severe haircut,
bangs cut short
and straight
and severe
across her
forehead.
hair buzzed
close behind
both ears.
hair dyed
blonde.
a tattoo
behind
the ear.
pull
the longer hair
back,
to expose
the short
clipped hair
behind
the ear,
to expose
the tattoo.

he drinks a
couple of beers
so he can try to
look casual
while he says
“i like
your ink”.
she likes
to get hit
on.
she doesn’t like
to get hit
on.
she rides
a scooter
and wears a
large reflective jacket,
neon yellow,
voluminous.
he wears
the swell of beers,
beers so he can
try to look
casual.
he wears a
new pair of
starched denim jeans
and
a few beers
so he can feel
comfortable enough
to wear their
discomfort.

the fibers don’t
give much,
don’t stretch.
she doesn’t respond
to him,
only flicks
her eyes
his way,
pretends
to smile,
goes back
to the tending.

“what does
any of this
mean?”,
some people
ask, some
people think.
“what do
you
do?”
“what are
we
supposed
to be
doing?”
the answer is
always
the same.

nothing.

the dehumidifier is
too loud so
it gets switched
off, unplugged.
the steam is
allowed to
collect itself
freely
upon all the
interior surfaces.
outside moisture,
invisible in the
morning light,
looks in.

a human with short hair sits in shadow, the sky gray and glowing through a window at their back. a small light casts small light.

Published by Zak

an intertidal island in an ocean of impermanence.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: