Bob

Bob has five days left
To vacate the building,
The shabby rented house
In which he hides.

So many things to do.
Spent seven hours yesterday
Looking for his watch.
Will look again today.
Can’t find his keys
Though he made three sets,
Put in three different places,
All disappeared, somehow.

Bob sits in a folding chair
Rubbing his bald head in his hands
Trying to remember what to do now.
A framed photograph of him in uniform
Looks handsomely down on his paper-strewn living room
From the corner of the mantelpiece.
Shoeboxes full of unopened mail
Sit on a card table.
He is afraid of bad news.
Half the pages of a yellow legal pad
Are folded over,
Filled with his complaints.
Tiny black letters.

Bob leaves his phone off the hook
And swears it’s the phone company’s fault
That no one calls.

They let him out of the hospital a week ago.
He still wears the plastic bracelet.
His skin is rubbed raw,
Stigmata from where he fought to break free
From his constraints.
He is fighting still.


~ Russ Allison Loar
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