Patricia Russo




The boy with the long hair
has hogged the bathroom early
after shouting on the phone all night
mostly, “That’s not what happened.”

In the kitchen
no one has fixed the big wall clock
The mean woman upstairs has left a note
angry words in nice handwriting
berating the world for not cleaning the coffee maker

The man with the baby blue slippers
is looking at the big round clock
Don’t, I say, because it would take
climbing up on a chair
and then stepping onto the table

but he pulls out the less wonky chair
and shoves it against the wall
These things matter, he says,
They do.





Patricia Russo has had poems in or upcoming at One Art, Acropolis Journal, The Sunlight Press, and Twin Bird Review.