end (of the week at least)

"Unexpected Dangers" (Erdrich)

I’m much the worse for wear, it’s double true.
Too many incidents
a man might misconstrue –
my conduct, for a lack of innocence.

I seem to get them crazed or lacking sense
in the first place.
Ancient, solid gents
I sit by on the bus because they’re safe,

get me going, coming, with their canes,
or what is worse,
the spreading stains
across the seat. I recognize at once

just what they’re up to, rustling in their coats.
There was a priest,
the calmer sort,
his cassock flowing down from neck to feet.

We got to talking and I brushed his knee
by accident,
and dutifully,
he took my hand away and put it back

not quite where it belonged; his judgment
was not that exact.
I underwent
a kind of odd conversion from his act.

They do call minds like mine one track.
One track is all you need
to understand
their loneliness, then bite the hand that feeds

upon you, in a terrible blind grief.

Tegan and Sarah - Speak Slow