9 to 5
It was 2014 / 15 / 16
it was the M, the J, the Z
it was like this but in 3D:

Trusses clipping the windows in bold italics
the East River’s blue description as if ribboned by X’s
then the trees, brick-faced buildings, cars, streets.

It was at a distance then in transit
from the general toward the specific
the above-ground’s flickering list
of person / place / thing

    diced light, ‘Hot Mallets,’ lintels, rivets.

It was left and right
that ceremony of storefronts
by train
    then by bus
on the 38, 48 or 64
all the b’s weaving
uneasily between the double parked
and traffic.

    And shouldering
through doorways, stairwells
or along the platform’s edge
the day’s worth of commuters
become the evening’s
painted in the station’s bare florescence.

It was that impatient procession
at the narrow escalator entrance
each face climbing the opposite
direction, the broad shoulders of girls
breasts heavy and loose beneath tees
or the half-worn headphones and
all those mouths opening and closing
around the latest Drake Rihanna or Bey cadences
swaying in then out of earshot.

2.

It grew particular as it grew

The damp air still stung from last night’s regulars
idling after the doors locked to help ‘clean up’
smoke chaining into the yellow overheads.

It was Aush, Kah, Mo or Key.

It was Magda, Jon, Jules or Spencer.

It was the two cigarettes suspended in one Collins of water
when the gates go down; pre-light needling the horizontals.

And it was the same two cigarettes, swollen, in the half-full Collins
when the porter enters, morning falling across the bar-top.

It was the porter sorting the bin of drained bottles
the hand’s way the body exposes its cautious thought
pausing over the creased mouths of the shattered empties
the undamaged MGD’s, bud heavies and lights filling
the boxes for recycling then the bucket with water, the cap with bleach.

Then the mop head curled over into its knot
the heel’s weight coaxing a water turned grey
with whatever residue the previous night tracked in.

It’s meticulous work.

The print of lips on a dirty tumbler.
A baggy licked clean of coke.

It was last call then it was really last call.
5 AM and through the working one of two torn speakers
BBC’s ‘New’s Hour’ at a mutter.

Counting down the drawer as if with every other bar in the city, to 300
in 10’s 5’s and 1’s, leave the pennies.

It was Midway, Ontario, Boat.
It was Lucy’s, Irene’s or Sophie’s.

It was our daylight bodies dressed in yesterday’s clothing
stepping into the bone-clean morning to reports of Orlando, Paris, Nice.

Weather reports, financial reports as him and her walked freshly to work.

It was one day falling over into the next like river dreck adrift in the newsfeed
buttered rolls and coffee – light and sweet / light and sweet.

Zade, Sam, Suze, Greg, James or C.

It was the movie of our dream and of our nightmare, the total film
we carried inside of us.

We with our dreams bare our faces as to the camera
and smile.