I wanted to drive into the country
to get away from some things.
Patty’s sister was in the hole again,
about nine grand, and the gutters
needed a good mucking before winter.
Then, on Monday, the boss chewed me out
over some reports I forgot to file,
but I couldn’t tell him the truth
of the matter: Jim, the brandy, the afternoon
pooling our bonuses down at the track.
I turned out my right pocket
hoping to find some excuse in there
and out fell a couple of quarters,
plus the rat tail.
“What is that?” said the boss.
There was still some life in the tail
and it flopped around for a while
under the desk
where my shoe could not reach it.
The left pocket was even worse.
After that, I understood
there was no point showing up
to the office happy hour again.
I never liked that job much anyway.
“Too much paperwork for a Friday,”
I told Patty as she swerved toward
that elliptical bend in the road,
the one where the cliff pinched the sea.
“Hell if that isn’t true,” she replied,
and floored it.
Ashley Varela (they/them) is a queer writer & author based in Seattle, Washington.
Twitter: @ashleyvarela_