LET PEOPLE POEMS

it is monday by Elias Van Son

it is monday

The phone wakes me at 7:48am

I hang it up

Shit

I sleep for seven more minutes with my eyes open

then swing my legs out of bed and into some boxers

The cat watches me at the refrigerator

He sees me pick up a gallon of milk

two boxes of cereal

a bowl

spoon

and two strawberries

balance these items

for my move to the couch

so as to avoid those three steps back into the kitchen

I eat two bowls of cereal

mixing the brands equally

adding one berry per bowl

I watch highlights of Brandon Jennings

playing in some Baltimore summer league

because of the NBA lockout

This happens when players are greedy:

Owners get pissed

They clench their red jaws

They close the doors

and won’t even let Roger Mason Jr

into his locker for his orthopedic sneakers

I am not a mathematician but

if everyone at the Garden is paying ninety bucks

to sit in the 300 level nosebleeds

and you’re losing money

then you’re either an idiot

or a liar

I wonder how I will fill those hours

if there is no basketball season

I button my shirt

I drive my car fast with earbuds in

I step into the elevator with earbuds in

and say FIVE much too loudly when a stranger asks

which floor

The black box on the wall asks for my employee identification number

I type 6 6 6 and hit ENTER

but the black box does not laugh

I type 3 8 5 3 8 and it asks me to insert my thumb

Touché

The black box scans my thumbprint and remembers who I am

CONFIRMED  it reads

surprised by its own competence

I press ENTER once more and walk away

The office is easy

It is not like the jungles of New Guinea

I sit down at the computer

I read all of your poems

When I hear someone behind me I minimize the window

pretend to be very interested in some memo from Keith

explaining that we lost the New York State Powerball again

but we must keep trying and

we’re so close he can feel it

Everyone in the office will bring him another dollar

to buy the next ticket because we are frightened

of being left behind

Everyone is older than i am

and that feels pretty good

like maybe I have time to

get myself out of this room

grow a huge beard and fight

police by throwing stones

at a helicopter we paid for

Holler at your tax dollars

ripped from the sky and burnt to ashes

Holler at lake effect snow from Buffalo

dissolving on young tongues

Every god damned thing is a sign of the Apocalypse

a lifting of the veil

Bev tells me about her cats

and what they vomit onto the carpet

She tells me about her family vacations

and how she got uppity once and asked to see the hotel manager

so they upgraded her room to a grand suite in which she could smoke cigarettes

She smiles

I’m a smoker

what can I say?

She tells me about a concert

She remembers her daughter Marley bringing a friend along

though she can’t remember which one

Carrie Underwood is such a performer

Bev says

She is the real deal

I get shivers just thinking about it

She tells me about letting Marley go to Warped Tour

and how it made her nervous

having her daughter so far away

I listen actively by nodding in agreement

or nodding along to the beat of words strung together

remembering key facts

so that I can say something empathetic

when she stops speaking

but really

I am thinking about psychologists getting paid

and how my services would be considered pro bono

if I didn’t hate U2

A few more years of school would qualify me

to dissect a human brain

She pauses and I pounce on the quiet

Hey

could you sign this?

What is it?

You’re a notary public, right?

Ever since I was a kid

I worked in Albany for almost 18 years you know

then my husband moved us down here and I just kept on working

Marley was small

It’s such a hard thing because

I nod and begin to write my name

What is it

Wait

don’t sign yet

Let me find my stamp

I wait for 8 hours

let the black box read my thumb

listen for the beep

drive home to smoke cheap marijuana

and turn on a documentary about ecstasy

while drawing something in a book

This teenage girl is being interviewed

She and her boyfriend used to roll around on the daily

after parachuting pills

The boy’s whole family sits with her quietly

I begin sketching a pelican

The girl says he stopped for a while

flushed their stash while she was sleeping one off

He told me he wanted me to know

that you could feel ecstasy without taking it

which was nice except

he threw away my multivitamins

We laughed even though I was angry

We made a promise to stop together

or at least to never do it apart

He made me promise

then he went off with his friends and died from it

The dead boy’s mother pushes out an enormous lower lip

in an effort not to cry

We just miss him so much

She starts to cry

He was really a good kid

a good man

Her other children don’t say anything

They just sit there looking blank but dressed well

Their father stares at a fiber on the carpet

The girlfriend sours her mouth and raises an eyebrow

Might as well be a glass of champagne

He went behind my back

and look where he is now