Old Pay Stubs by Jasen Sousa
Old Pay Stubs
"For DZ"
Evenings after still frozen dinners
and days before his envelope would be flung
to him like a bone, across a cigarette scarred
wooden break room table, he would stooper in his damp
work clothes.
Boot laces tied tightly around his tender ankles,
socks folded back hair on his legs
in ways it was not meant to be bent,
knees pressed against his pants
like a child's face to a window on a misting Saturday.
There were no dishes to scrape clean, no
trash, but a waste basket filled with wrinkled
receipts that angered him every time
he walked by.
He remembered it all like he needed
to be back the next morning at 7:00 A.M.
as he slept uncomfortably nude on top
of tucked-in sheets starring at a tie which hung
over the back of a chair swaying like a clock pendulum
from an after midnight May breeze.