dry clothes

soaked from stripping wallpaper
all morning

I come home to change
and to eat scrambled eggs over
the kitchen sink.

I look out the window.
I see the mail man
with his bag,

his mind on other things.
the neighbor,
retired and
limping with her groceries.

waving to someone.

i'll go back to work soon
in warm
dry clothes.

hands in my pockets to this
February wind.

the whistle of the train
in my ears. another day
at it.

my mind drifts
to another year,

I think of an old friend.