Monday Morning .

Monday Morning

   Kings Road buses run
   late punctiliously. Beasts of burden.
   Good morning: all roads lead
   to work. We'll get you
   there, rest assured. Some cold
   today, and No, after you.
   I'm alone when I sit down to write,
   have to be, else it's a no go.
   A girl. Sometimes we go
   to someone's house or the bar
   in the Days Inn. Not much else,
   she says across the aisle
   as we pass the mall.
   I bring a Thermos of coffee with me,
   I reply. Since, if you save
   the cost of a cup a day
   over a lifetime, well,
   you've really got something.
   Do you know the signs
   of stroke? Debt problems? -- call
   Atlantic Debt Solutions. Thank you
   for not smoking. This bus kneels.

   The TV is too much with me.
   Neither here nor there. A man
   was killed behind my building,
   on the tracks. Trains don't kneel.
   I think I heard a whistle
   around 6 am. Have a theory
   about the whole affair, but
   the coverage is so bad out here.
   You'd think they'd provide
   a shelter at this stop.
   Once the snow flies, I don't know
   what I'll do. Driver said
   he might've been dead
   before it hit him. Maybe a drunk
   taking a shortcut home. Maybe suicide,
   the recession, you know. Thank god
   the construction on Welton is over
   or I might have joined him.
   Success is just outside your door:
   Nova Scotia Career College.
   Run for the Cure: who
   are you running for? I might
   have seen a shoe through the trees
   from my balcony, but it's further
   than you'd think. I'm afraid
   this transfer might be no good
   at the other end. I'll never know
   his name. Had to sacrifice
   my cable connection to save the budget.

Jesse Patrick Ferguson resides in Sydney, Cape Breton, where he teaches English and plays the guitar, mandolin, bodhran and fiddle with varying success. In 2009, Freehand Books published his first full-length book, Harmonics. He is currently reading Ken Babstock's Days into Flatspin, Christina Brown's The Yoga Bible: The Definitive Guide to Yoga and the October issue of the Walrus.