7:10 ghost-town

stale time is an arid desert to cross

when i'm on the job. so i travel

by foot, standing, it's easy on the heels.

i cross the midpoint of my journey,

counting minutes and hours trickle

down, like an i.v. pumping balsam

into our empty market place.

the store walls are of a bone-pale

plaster and the tiles floors, speckled

with footprints. time stolen, hand-over

fist. i catch a sight of our parking lot,

where cars are parked– employees only.

church bell down the street is ringing off key

femur bone felt like it was pulling away from my leg today. as though enough strength could separate flesh, muscle, nerve endings and the bone. if the bone broke away, took off like it tried to do so many years ago, where would it go? i felt it pulsating under my jeans, radiating a muted ache from past injuries like fruit flies looming over compost. i could almost hear it. the waves of that dull pain, a near numbness, fled from the femur to the knee i twisted. the knee, that has it's own problems. the knee that came undone, under the piles of flesh and plastic padding and sweating bodies amidst a game of football. the knee, now aged like some geriatric artifice. knocking out and around if there's too much static or too much tension, ready to run away from the leg. the knee and the femur bone would jet out like two teenage lovers, eloping in the summer sweat. but that pain, the knee pain, radiated down across the plains of my foot, spotted with crystalline veins and scar tissue. the pain stopped at the base of my foot, where the three broken toes lay. big toe, the king of the foot, done for when i was still a child. broken after putting my foot into a wall. the middle toe, broken in football, again. not related to the knee injury, but they know each other well enough. they're kissing cousin when a storm rolls in or when the impending is speaking to me through fracture limbs. the second to last toe, broken. broken while drinking twice. this toe was the stand out, the celebrity of my foot. it went the way of it's neighbor after i fell down stairs with shoes. it popped to the side, from the base, crooked liked a home equity sign reading to blow in the wind. that was break number one. second time, same guy, same style of break. this is where the fame came in, broken in front of a crowd by a car with an unconscious driver. the wheel overtook the base of my toe and it was there, done for and out. i popped it back in without so much as a second thought, before the pain started up. before the nerves realized they had been torn from the base of my foot, before i cared about it. the crowd watched. shocked, reality television, sure why the hell not? i popped it in and went along with my night. the feeling hasn't came back. so if the the femur bone and knee are eloping from my leg, splitting to reno nevada for a drunken hitch up would they take the toes with them. it feels like the toes are trying to leave too, but hell, i don't want to force them out. my leg has an open door policy. they can stick around for as long as they want, the injuries. the can hang out as long as they get a job (keeping me walking) without too much back talk (stop fucking hurting so goddamn much) we'll be all right. i'll skip the numb arch and torn ligament since they don't seem to opposed to sticking around. they watch the femur, knee and toes break away from the bone structure and integrity of my right leg like they're breaking for high ground after the heavy rains. they'll watch them tear right out of the skin or under cartilage or hairline fracture and leave on their own accord. they'll watch those injuries, gossip some , maybe be bitter they weren't as brave. they'll know the leg is a good gig, it will keep up for some time but they'll be bitter their injuries weren't as bad, that the torn ligament didn't team up with the acl or the arch didn't collapse under pressure. they'll watch the other's go, leaving me limping and they long to do the same.

stones

she sat and looked at me with something honest,

something brimming behind her eyes. pain more

or less, painful maybe, painless as she talked

about the miscarriage. i watched her eyes focus

on the sofa. they scanned across the chestnut leather,

like a floodlight in prison. maybe a name for the child,

maybe for the child itself. the child had a name—

she said it briefly, a whisper, a murmur. deafening

yet i didn't hear it and when i asked again she spoke

nothing. it had a name. names are given to children,

it was a child. she carried a child with a name.

her motherhood hung around like a bad cough,

between us like a cinder block wall, keeping me

away from her, keeping herself in. but she talked

just the same: about the child, about the months

she carried it inside herself. like some question

gaining momentum, month after month until it

spilled out of her stomach. after birth, the child

didn't give an answer because it had wasn't alive.

she carried an unanswered inquisition, for days

past nine months. asking, yearning, carried, deceased.

i sat like some pro-bono therapist carrying her burden,

problems. friends. her pushing people away and they

push her, a shoving match of relationships. she talked

about isolation and i pictured us drifting off, hunkered

at the safety of the leather couch. isolated on my fifteen

minute break with no escape so i nodded my head, dashing

concerned expressions. the wall between us grew, stacked

when she brought up her husband or ex-husband, an ex.

i sat and looked at my hands. counting the scars

and running my eyes along the deep lines that crossed

like railways across the skin. hands, like mine took out

their anger on the surfaces of her body. hands like mine

balled into fists, like he, the ex was clenching grenade.

i looked up to meet her eyes as i apologized for the hell

she paid but the wall was still there. a graffitied barrier

with each brick and each cinder block for each word

that came from her mouth. fifteen minutes to cover

a lifetime of pain. i don't get paid like a therapist, i didn't

get a degree like a therapist, i'm not in a therapist office

tacking down notes. breaking for fifteen minutes, i count

them as they drag by. my apron is covered in ground

coffeee and stuffed with invoices for groceries. she dives

into the worst period of her life and my feet ache. pulsing

under the arch up to the toes and this woman, carried

miscarried in college. i don't get paid like a therapist

because i'm not a therapist. i make her lemonade,

three lemons, ice, raw agave, water, silence.