the platitudes of willful resemblance

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