Monday

I should know to be skeptical of myself
when the plastic gleam of the pacifier,
which has appeared since my last visit to the guest room
on the base of the bedside lamp,
shines ominously,
commentary on my emotional development by one of the cleaners, perhaps,
whose sister is close with my mother,
and who is privy to my life in a way even many friends are not.

But I am too busy being indicted by the pacifier
to be skeptical of heartbreak-induced paranoia.

I have been busy with indictments, lately,
after falling on my face in love for the third time in twice as many months.

"At least you know your heart works!" They say.
And, "What a beautiful thing to find such a connection, even if only briefly."

I kicked a basketball into the rafters above a playground after school,
cried into the fridge while the cold air spilled out
and the condiments persevered in their ongoing neglect,
paid $20 for a day pass to the gym
and then spent the only remaining business hour sitting on the equipment
on the phone with the friend who was finally free; he read me Hafiz.

It's a blessing that I was between bench press sets when he got to the line
about a broken man being dragged behind a farting camel.
Otherwise, I might have died twice.

It should help that a beautiful, intelligent person
thinks of me and sends Neruda's lament of Mondays.
It does and does not.

Perhaps it will tomorrow, when it is no longer Neruda's Monday,
and I am no longer the road beneath the wounded wheel
that howls towards the night
as I bleed into my own ruts.