one long day before another

for the sixth night this week, you stay
to work too late to see your son's
manic waking hours or your third-
trimester-wide wife before frustration
and fatigue have devoured her

but it's for the pay
and a half and the one
on the way and the two
you've missed again

dramatically, you stumble in, drop
your empty lunch box, phones,
partially filled paperwork, business
cards, other trash -- drop it all
with flourish on the kitchen table

but it's necessary
punctuation at the end
of your daily bread-
winner's sentence

you leave it there -- your mess, not
your baggage -- sit blank-faced watching
animated adult humor, wait for midnight
and the mind-novocain to take effect before
shedding clothes onto the bedside floor

but it's only for the night
hours, not long enough
to pause to realize this
is how life is misplaced