Maintenance

The electric bill is yellow.

It sits on the Formica

next to a pile of crumbs

and the kitchen timer

ticking toward the tea.

My heart is a gray piston.

It is doing the same work

it did yesterday,

a heavy, unthanked thudding.

In the blue light before six,

the vein in my wrist

gives a shallow, rhythmic twitch

like a wire under tension.

I am still here,

which is a lot of folding

and breathing to manage.