on seeing a beard in a convenience store

I threw open the double door
and growled "it's Tuesday"
and everyone inside the store
put down their distractions for a moment
and looked at me because
it was Tuesday,
but that's not the kind of thing you say
in polite company


and you, you looked at home
in the florescent lighting
seeping into yr bones.
the daily, ever present
ebb and flow of coffee and
cigarettes and the tides
and the moon
and new newspapers
replacing the old
creating the illusion of
time passing, but in yr veins
it's the same, and when the
register rings up

I slid dollars across the counter,
like a piston in mid-fire,
and yeah, it was Tuesday, and I wanted
to leave my ID there when
I walked out,
make a clean break of it all,
of all the Tuesdays
waiting for the light to change,
for the rustle of newspaper,
for the condensation to drown us all,

but instead we leave like bandits
who forgot to get off with
anything but the coffee
in our cups