Tuesday

has a perfection that haunts me,

like the oracular whine in the cabin of an airliner

sailing over Ohio.

Something transient, the lack of judgment

gifted to time neither end

nor beginning, nor yet even middle:

some minor point in the development,

often missed by fast readers, where

the characters are quietly putting on

their humanity like early spring jackets:

a favorite word, a particular thoughtful expression

that comes over one’s face

when listening to music

or writing out French homework,

trouble falling asleep, trouble waking,

an inclination towards cloud architecture,

a mild hatred of cats, a violent affection

for a certain sitcom.

The events of Wednesday will swallow these things.

On that absurd and turbulent day,

someone new will hate us,

we’ll make Grandma angry for the first time

in twenty years,

we’ll be falling in love, we’ll get chased

by a nasty neighbor’s poodle,

we’ll save someone’s life,

we’ll run over a pregnant opossum

and feel evil for days.

But for now,

the sky as yet dim and bland,

the waking dog

raising its nose to the fading moon

and the Pop-Tarts hot in our hands,

let us drink up the perfection of Tuesday.