Elevator Etiquette

Someone tagged some trees

in the park just like if they were

a highway overpass or a boxcar

in a train yard. I’ve got no songs

for these orphans. I’ve got no money

for gas.

The hostess sat me in the corner

by the bathrooms and I haven’t seen

my waiter in hours. Don’t ask why

there’s blood on that tree stump.

Just eat the chicken. Drink whatever

they bring.

It’s up to you, you know.

You’ve got to make the night fall

and the moon rise. You have to

keep the birds from flying north

in the wintertime. Sometimes

the seasons hesitate. I can’t do it.

I’ve got a fever. I’m losing weight.

My blood is clotting

in all the wrong places.

Doesn’t everyone know someone

who overslept and missed a flight

that crashed?

Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe literary journal, the New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Atticus Review, Door is a Jar, Guernica, The Pinch, and Nine Mile Review among others. His first book, The Invisible Man’s Tailor, is available from Nine Mile Press.