Thirty-Four Dollars

I thought by now I'd understand the shape

of days like this—how to hold, not to be held.

Forty-three minutes on the line. No escape,

just hold music, cycling. Something felled

from a song I can't quite name. The phone

face-up on the counter, bright and still.

Someone answered at thirty. Then the tone:

transferred, then dropped. I look at the bill

I'm writing on—the reference number, the amount:

thirty-four. I find a pen, I write.

I don't know how to make this something I can count

as managed. As handled. As right.

The cup still on the counter. Coat still on.

I'm forty minutes in and something's gone.