Item 10 Measures of the Week: Thursday

4. Thursday tastes of threat and thirst

Yes, you have come awake to find yourself

swimming blankly back and forth across

the pool. Small comfort to be right.

Yes, your breath really is that bad.

Yes, your offerings are indeed that sad.

Somehow as you slept the week has crept

forward in the night, passed you as you splashed

about in slumber's cooling lake, lapped

you silly and left you in its wake.

There is a weariness and worry

that fills most Thursdays, a helium

of tension that can make your voice

take on a funny timbre, so look lively.

Stay limber. Once more the beds all need

to have been made. Skim your fears

like stones over the tide coming toward you

in the laundry basket, and pray there is nothing

in it you can't live without until Sunday.

The weekend winks like a flirtatious

girl at a party but nobody is staying

out late tonight. Today we are in the thick

and almost through. There is still so much

you told yourself you'd do. Beat down

your bafflement like dough, give rise

to the yeast of your yearning to answer

the call of duty without giving in to all

those other voices. You know the ones

I mean, they are always speaking

never seen. Lock your doubts outside

like cats on a screened in back porch;

let them breathe fresh air without

giving them the power to scorch.

What's your point? You can not know.

You're probably late. Get up and go.

Your thirst unslaked, your smiled faked,

just dance with this day what brung ya.

Stand on the loafers of the larger future

the way you used to do with your father in the den.

It's deja vu all over again, but that's all right.

It means you know the words to this song

and you can hum along until another week takes flight.