A Bit of Ash

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

My mailman sips a cigarette
inside his postal service truck,
parked up the avenue beneath
a massive ash. His knuckles rest
above a standard-issue tube sock,
as if concealing it: the spark—
the spark amid our paper debts
and correspondences, our mail—
or as if contemplating when
to put the whole thing up in flames,
the magazines, the ink, the gas.
Truthfully, which of us would not
appreciate one extra day
untroubled by the past or asks
of our exacting future selves?
The news can wait. So, too, the cash.
A bit of ash is all it’d take,
one harmless flick of that cigarette.