Tuesday A.M.

I
The alarm does not ring loudly—
it hums like something tired.
The room is neither dark nor light,
just barely rewired.
A hand reaches through shallow sleep
to silence what must start;
morning enters without drama
and settles in the heart.

II
The kettle clicks. The coffee blooms.
The floor is cool and plain.
Outside, the street performs its slow
rehearsal of the same.
A neighbor shuts a car door twice,
a bus exhales its brake;
the day assembles piece by piece
for everyone awake.

III
Shoes are tied in practiced loops,
a badge is clipped in place;
a mirror offers back a face
prepared for measured pace.
Not hopeful, not defeated—
just aligned to clock and list;
the quiet courage of the usual
tightens in the wrist.

IV
Traffic builds its patient wall,
red lights blink and trade;
windows frame a hundred lives
in separate parade.
No anthem swells, no violins—
just engines tuned to wait;
the shared obedience to time
that holds the city straight.

V
The office door receives the key
without surprise or cheer;
the hallway hums fluorescent
with a steady, tepid glare.
A desk resumes its posture
of papers, screen, and pen;
the chair remembers yesterday
and welcomes it again.

VI
Emails bloom like small demands
with subject lines precise;
a meeting gathers neutral faces
lit in tempered ice.
Voices move in careful arcs
around a numbered slide;
agreements form in bullet points,
dissent is set aside.

VII
A warehouse shifts its heavier air
with pallets, tape, and steel;
a nurse counts doses, checks a chart,
notes what the monitors reveal.
A teacher marks attendance
as thirty chairs align;
a mason measures brick by brick
against a steady line.

VIII
Lunch arrives without parade—
a container, bread, a chair;
conversations skim the surface
of weather, price, and fare.
Phones glow in brief escape,
then dim to working gray;
the hour folds back into
the spine of the day.

IX
Afternoon stretches longer
than the morning ever did;
a yawn is caught mid-breath
and quietly forbid.
A spreadsheet waits for patient eyes,
a floor for one more sweep;
fatigue moves in like shallow tide
too small to make one weep.

X
Somewhere a hand is blistered raw,
somewhere a back bends slow;
somewhere a voice grows hoarse with calls
that rarely answer “no.”
No headline notes the steady trade
of hours turned to wage;
the labor of the ordinary
does not demand a stage.

XI
At last the clock releases grip,
the screen goes black and still;
the hallway sheds its borrowed light,
the parking lot refills.
Shoes cross the threshold home again,
carrying dust and sum;
the day folds into evening
without a drum.

XII
There is no triumph in the sink,
no glory in the chair;
just muscles loosening their hold
and quiet in the air.
Tomorrow waits without disguise,
already drawing near—
another plain and faithful turn
of work, of wage, of year.