THE BROWN BAGGER
In the winter mornings before he woke the children,
reset the alarm another fifteen minutes for his wife to sleep,
he dressed quickly and hurried into the kitchen
to paste together a sandwich of peanut butter and jelly,
or bologna, butter and a cheese slice, grabbed an apple,
and filled a small container of cereal to snack,
before hurrying down the steep hill to the bus stop
for the trip downtown in the huddled silence
of strangers, hats pulled over their ears
In the twenty minutes he was granted to swallow his lunch
he watched the upper crust leave the office early, return late,
laughing, smelling of three martini meals in paneled taverns,
flinging off scarves and overcoats back onto racks, ruffling papers,
shouting orders, gathering for coffee and more chit-chat
He skipped the elevator for the stairs, marched up the dark street
to his little house, grabbed his tools and fixed a furnace register,
changed bulbs, sweated over bills, worried his children needed
fixing too but didn’t know how to make them right according to
his hopes for them at birth
He used the same sacks until they fell apart, until he could
heat some soup, grill toast and cheese, read the paper
at the kitchen table while his wife napped on the sofa,
after the kids disappeared to places in the National Geographic
he visited at the public library where the A/C was always on