will be nice, will say some kind word, the cool front yard before us and the dogs in the backyard shitting on everything

Me 6:15 this morning waking up after three days hiking w Earthgirl

Me at 8AM smelling the World's Shittiest Human's latest self-serving turd

• I got Dr Sevrin ears
• Not coincidence Clinton dump splats day of Trump's impeachment
• ANGRY FOREVER
• not coincidence dump splats day after National Cracker Cosplay Day
• not coincidence NCCD coincides with MLK Day
• not coincidence impeachment trial starts after NCCD
• I am mad online
• Collapsologie: constructing an idea of how things fall apart
• The playbook for poisoning earth: we are ruled by sociopaths
• I. Hate. Motherfucking. Democrats.
• I need a pop song

MINIMUM WAGE

Matthew Dickman

My mother and I are on the front porch lighting each other's cigarettes

as if we were on a ten-minute break from our jobs

at being a mother and son, just ten minutes

to steal a moment of freedom before clocking back in, before

putting the aprons back on, the paper hats,

washing our hands twice and then standing

behind the counter again,

hoping for tips, hoping the customers

will be nice, will say some kind word, the cool

front yard before us and the dogs 

in the backyard shitting on everything.

We are hunched over, two extras on the set of The Night of the Hunter.

I am pulling a second cigarette out of the pack, a swimmer

rising from a pool of other swimmers. Soon we will go back

inside and sit in the yellow kitchen and drink

the rest of the coffee 

and what is coming to kill us will pour milk

into mine and sugar into hers.