I have to mail out a few letters
in the morning –
one to a banker that
I forgot to mail this morning,
one to a friend who doesn’t write back often
and some submissions with SASE all ready for
rejection.
all this makes me think
of how I miss adjusting the carburetor
in the driveway nearly everyday
so the car would run well enough
to get me to and from work waiting tables
at some chain restaurant on the verge of going bankrupt
where they didn’t care if you shaved that day or not
and most days I didn’t shave and smelled like gasoline
and used oil.
I eventually grew a beard so I wouldn’t have to shave at all
and quit the restaurant for less demeaning work
elsewhere but never found any
just more jobs and surviving
just over broke
renting rooms or couches
or spending late nights at doughnut shops
so I wouldn’t have to go anywhere
and those places never close
even though they had locks on all the doors.
but today I have to make sure that I mail
out these letters and that one to the banker
about bond funds and such
these are things I don’t really pay attention to
– at least not yet
and my car is fuel injected and almost new
and my son asks me
if I regret anything in life – he’s nine –
and I don’t know what to tell him.
– Hoc Scripsi
the platitudes of willful resemblance 