MY WEEKDAY MORNING ROUTINE

by Douglas Nordfors


Night didn’t stick, and so I went on living, 
as if woke up 
to the border between two peaceful countries 
I had crossed 
on the backs of five animals who declined 
to comprehend 
that the earth was one earth. Metaphor was like 
the silhouette 
of a pattern of renegade veins, and five loose 
vials of blood, 
and work was like the full length of a chick's beak 
splitting wide 
open five cracks in an egg. A half an hour later, 
as I always 
do, I drove 15 minutes, and then stopped, as 
I do always, 
at a particular store for coffee and breakfast. 
There it was, 
the counter, as well as the usual quite pleasant 
young woman 
behind it. I was sure—I mean I believe now— 
that even 
prior to dawn, she had been upright and alert, 
counting, 
over and over, her "thank yous." As soon as 
she realized 
that she had already said it once to me, she 
apologized, 
needlessly. She said it twice to me. That's how 

it broke, 
my weekday morning routine.