And he was thrust back out
Into the world, his life,
all of it as half-assed and broken
as before, the day too short
and bright again.
He muddled through it
as he always had;
the job and the wife,
the places to go and things
to do, dutifully saying
hello and thank you while
turning the knob of one
mundane object or another,
when all he knew or understood or dreamed
was another day in the sad motel
with the ugly floors and the thin
dirty walls and the crackheads
in the room next door, fighting
and coughing and watching cartoons
and his only thought was of the two of them
laughing stupidly on the bloodstained bed
his hand on her ass, listening to her
voice filled with love even better
than the kind you read about
in books, calling him daddy.
–William Taylor Jr.