Alignment

I was looking at a man on a billboard—

he was smiling about term life insurance—

and then the world just dropped.

The coffee didn't spill, it leaped.

A brown, hot arc across the passenger seat,

soaking into the fabric where you used to sit.

The rim of the hole was jagged, bitten,

showing the rebar like a broken bone

poking through the gray skin of the street.

Now I’m in the lobby, staring at a stack

of magazines from four years ago.

The mechanic has grease under his nails

and a look that says I’m the kind of person

who lets things fall apart.