Poem (The day gets slowly started)

The day gets slowly started. A rap at the bedroom door, bitter coffee, hot cereal, juice the color of sun which isn’t out this morning. A cool shower, a shave, soothing Noxzema for razor burn. A bed is made. The paper doesn’t come until twelve or one. A gray shine out the windows. “No one leaves the building until those scissors are returned.” It’s that kind of a place. Nonetheless, I’ve seen worse. The worried gray is melting into sunlight. I wish I’d brought my book of enlightening literary essays. I wish it were lunch time. I wish I had an appetite. The day agrees with me better than it did, or, better, I agree with it. I’ll slide down a sunslip yet, this crass September morning.