If only you could nap mid-day or play chess

on a sidewalk with grizzled old locals

beer breath inside coffee cups

steam on a winter day

clouds falling from the horizon onto the board

pieces mating and dying

all in a gray war game

 

You don’t work anymore at least not for money

but do work to find a place to fit in

feet in socks with torn heels

yellowed from being laundered with darks

faded sneakers

shoe laces broken and tied together with knots

forlorn and forsaken

with a pension in the bank unspent awaiting

an emergency

saved for a rainy day

 

The days of the week are the same day

yesterday and tomorrow

in a new world that isn’t new

baby’s breath and old people in diapers

watching the sun set past the boardwalk

sitting at a table

swallowed by the end of the day