DST, Extended Stay

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.