Improving Thursday

You

Of all people

Have been assigned

To fix

Fucking Thursday.

You spend the morning

Making improvements.

You paint Thursday’s

Back rooms

Sun yellow.

You clear out the screams

From Thursday’s

Southernmost provinces. 

You screw Thursday’s

Bellybutton

Back on,

Restore its sense of humor

Annexed in the war

With Friday. 

With trembling hands

You surgically extract from Thursday night

A ticking minute,

Sparing many stupid deaths. 

You give Thursday an extra firefly or two,

A handful of silence.

You construct a bridge

Made of breath and secrets

Over Thursday’s blood.

You

With your cracking voice

Teach Thursday

To carry a tune. 

You who lived three thousand of them

And never lifted a finger to help,

You are good now

For all that ails Thursday. 

                           -- New York, July 2010/published in the Notre Dame Review, Winter-Spring 2012