Workweek Headline

I can bear the dead-eyed stupidity

of rush-hour traffic,
endure mindless rage

from embattled commuters.

I can take orders from crackpots

and charlatans,
suffer the drudgery of office politics
and the bruising march

to another payday.

I can do that, I tell you.

And I can face the terror
of the ordinary citizen

and his ordinary ways.

Have I not withstood it

these many years?

So, if it's not too much to ask,

my Darling,
would you kindly acquit

a few dirty dishes in the sink,

loose change in the laundry,
forgetting to report

that your mother dropped by?

Because I am starved

for a tender, graceful touch,

My Love, 

else this pressure-cooker existence

could ignite into a desperate

and calamitous folly:

MAN GOES BERSERK.

SHOOTS TWENTY IN OFFICE BUILDING.

WIFE BITTER
HE LEFT THE TOILET SEAT UP.

**First published in Pearl literary magazine