Unleash the cadaver dogs.

After reading the eulogy she'd written me
my telephone rang-- her mother:
the one person who might change our fate;
but, as usual, it was just the contents
of her pocketbook dialing away-- a false alarm.
Life was becoming a series of those.

I shoved my muted phone back into my pocket
and returned my focus to the road and staying on it.
How was I supposed to take welding class seriously
on a night like this? The bond formed by two metals
paled in comparison to the other one that'd been broken.
My classmates were mostly married, either experts or victims
of that coveted and feared union. I was glad I'd stopped
to buy a pack. Enticing them with a smoke break behind
our union hall would encourage some much needed company.
The four walls and dead authors of the last five months weren't
enough. Admitting that felt like another isolated defeat which
worried me. It's battles that lose wars, mostly for want of nails.

A song that would've seemed sad
regardless of its lyrics came on the radio.
Some small Mexican kids waved at me from the back
of the bus that I'd approached at a stoplight. I feigned a smile
but couldn't find the gumption to wave back. I'd told enough
lies that afternoon, most of them to myself--
"I'll miss the cat most," being my favorite of the batch.

The welding went surprisingly well
perhaps due to the welcomed distraction
but when the call came I left
and the rest is the rest.
Even a window's entitled to a shade.