Smoke

The linoleum was gray

From all the smoking

Pickpockets coming in at 2am

And eating whatever’s on the stove

Big dog running around

Bumping its face into anything friendly

No security system

No alarms

Nothing to be worried about

Except the bad neighborhood

And the car outside that hadn’t moved in four days

Trying to see if it can spot a crime

Trying to make a case out of something
Fucking nosebag
Fucking scum

And all the while it’s Tuesday

And nobody knows it’s Tuesday

Because they’re laughing so damn hard

It’s like the weekend never got the part
Where it ends

Two newspapers with coupons cut out of both

And names circled here and there

Always obituaries

The announcements you thought you saw already
The people you thought died years ago

‘Didn’t he already--?’

‘Yeah, I think this is his third time’

A joke

But not a joke

Just something funny

Something to laugh about
Got to find something
To laugh about

Ashtrays are full

And nobody’s sure

Whose job it is

To empty them

So they don’t get emptied

That solves that problem

Someone keeps getting on the phone

With a woman who sounds pissed off about something

But nobody wants to find out what it’s all about

Because they’re having a good time

And chances are

There’s not much they can do about it anyway

Mind your business
That's the motto
That's how you live your life

This is a situation for shrugs and fuck-it’s

Smoke, and pretend you got nothing to do tomorrow

Because you’re going to be here all night
So you might as well enjoy yourself
And stop worrying

Can’t keep smoke detectors anymore

Because the smoke is in the walls now

It’s in the air
It's permanent

And who feels like hearing all that ding-ding-ding

Or beep-beep-beep

Or whatever-the-fuck

‘Whose birthday is it?’
‘What?’

‘This birthday card.  Is it somebody’s birthday?’

‘The fuck am I supposed to know?’

‘It’s on your table.’

‘Open it up.’

‘Nick’

‘Nick who?’

‘Doesn’t say.’

‘Is Nick the one with the birthday or is Nick the one sending the card?’

‘I guess he’s the one sending the card.’

‘Well, it ain’t my birthday.’

‘Well, I don’t know.’

‘Yeah, well.’

It goes on like this sometimes

And sometimes it doesn’t go anywhere

Straight lines of smoke

Right into the cheap glass lighting fixture

That hangs low over the kitchen table

Crusted stains on the counters

The fridge

The oven

Just clean enough so there’s no mice or bugs

But nowhere near satisfactory

Then again, it might depend

On who needs to be

Satisfied

A little cracked television

Playing some sitcom

From the 1970’s

That everybody remembers liking

The volume on high

So everybody has to talk over it

But nobody suggests

Turning the damn thing off

Since nobody’s watching it anyway

Nobody goes in the living room

Nobody sleeps in the bedroom

Nobody sleeps at all

In a few hours, the sun’ll rise

And one by one

Everybody will fall off

To day jobs and coffee pots

Kitchens in other houses

And broken marriages

In warmer bedrooms

But somewhere

It has to be Tuesday

And it has to be

A certain kind of Tuesday

From a certain kind of year

Maybe 1993 or 2004

Or 2007
Or 2028

Somebody has to make a joke

And somebody has to laugh at it

And if there was a smoke alarm

It would go off

Even if there wasn’t

Any smoke