There’s No Such Thing as Tuesday | By Puma Perl 

Jack says he needs lunch

That’s the only way he knows it’s noon

 

My clock’s hands are pointless

They fall off the wall

 

I drop my phone

whenever I reach for it

to check the time

 

The screen is filled

with chips and nicks,

but you can still see

my sunrise wallpaper,

a photo from my window

 

The sun doesn’t care

if I take its picture

and neither do I

 

There are no special moments

or hours or seconds

Not like church on Sunday,

where you shook hands

with your neighbors

and wished them peace and

marked the beginning of another week

 

Jack says he’s in Purgatory

I tell him I’m Jewish

so I don’t get to go there,

not even with the bus tickets

from London or the coins

from Prague, carefully saved

in a decorative box

in case, someday, I returned

 

There’s no such thing as someday

I’m either in the Now of nothing

or the Then of when it mattered,

and the useless drink tickets

mixed in with the coins

will not quench my thirst in Hell

 

Although the days melt

into each other interchangeably,

the month has declared itself as August,

with false promises, shorter days,

and rising humidity; long ago, September

meant school and August meant Charlie Parker

 

But there are no festivals, only thunderstorms

and depression, or maybe there’s no such thing

as depression either, it’s just August

 

Except that there’s no such thing as August,

there’s no such thing as Tuesday,

and if we thought Tuesday was Wednesday,

there’s no such thing as Wednesday either.

 

© puma perl, 08/12/20

 

Puma Perl is a poet and writer, with five solo collections in print. The most recent is Birthdays Before and After (Beyond Baroque Books, 2019.) She is the producer/creator of Puma’s Pandemonium, which brings spoken word together with rock and roll, and she performs regularly with her band Puma Perl and Friends. She’s received three New York Press Association awards in recognition of her journalism, and is the recipient of the 2016 Acker Award in the category of writing. Her most recent books can be found by clicking here.

 

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