BOOKED

I almost slipped     not on a banana peel
but on a banana, peeled. Naked.
Just the sweet, soft, easily edible part.
Lying there on the sidewalk, the inverse of a joke.
We all have days like this—the door
that should be unlocked won’t open.
Nothing under the welcome mat
but crushed, red leaves and cockroach limbs.
Voices from the vestibule carry scraps
of a heated argument     in from the cold—
…we’ve been through this…be honest…not surprised…
I took an alternate route to work and saw
a barn with a landscape painted on its side.
I saw one, two, three bald pumpkins in a field
before the word caught up and erased them
into a patch. I skimmed a few pills from the childproof bottle
and dropped them, like glittery slivers of flint,
along my way     out.
I’m never going back.
Why?
My three-pronged cord wouldn’t take
to the dual outlets of that house.
My friend, the masseuse,
hurries to work this morning, believing herself booked.
Her first appointment doesn’t show. The second calls to cancel.
The third shows up an hour late. Apologies, apologies—
It’s the strangest thing, but on his way he got rear-ended
and the crick in his neck disappeared. Like that, he snaps,
and drops a twenty into her unused hands.
As the time for her fourth appointment draws nearer,
she weighs the odds….
They lean towards rockets launching
into the steadfast ground.