Deadline World
       

This way every minute is the last.
I jammed my thumb shoving paper in
the printer, pressed the key,
let it fly with one eye on the ticking time.
Someone quotes the love of adrenaline,
but I don’t know—love, proper love, takes
time. Now a voice over
the cube wall says, better to have loved
and lost than never to have... the loser.
I overhear the quote about wages
not keeping up with the cost of living,
and then I cannot remember
what milk tastes like.
I think it must be thick and flabby
and it might be sweet, because...
why else?
Someone’s radio reports
that siphoning from tanks
and driving away without paying
at the pump has increased
at an alarming rate.
Alarm bells—I think it all began there
with dual-function, the alarm bell that marked
panic and signaled the next class all in one.
I had to run the length of the school
not to be tardy. I had all the state-issued books
on my back. Out of breath and sliding
into a chair at the bell.
The clock resets itself every hour,
you know. Just now, I’m three minutes
into the next deadline.

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Copyright © 2012 J. P. Dancing Bear All rights reserved
from The Abandoned Eye
FutureCycle Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission