Unemployed Christmas

Can days be merry
and bright? Jobs – like ornaments –
fragile, out of reach.

Not among the 6%

“Let’s go to the beach!”
One kid, online, shrugs as the
other keeps texting.

“In a typical week, only 6 percent of children ages nine to thirteen play outside on their own.”
from The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream by Christopher B. Leinberger

Already mid-July

And so summer goes
like fishing line cast into
swift moving waters

Job search

Panera’s didn’t
call, nor Applebee’s. Rejec-
tion’s hard at sixteen.

Senior Ball

Formally over
twelve years of learning to look
good on this one night.

Study hall

The play was about
them. His unrequited love
her indifference.

Hard Rock Cafe, Niagara Falls

All around it, the
town is dead. Pity the poor
taken investors.

Inexplicable sadness

In wordless despair
M dissolves in tears clutching
me like a life vest.

Laptop

An adult blankie.
To take one from its owner
will make grown men cry.

Why I need to sleep

When I stay up late
my thoughts move oddly like lab
mice stunted by drugs.