Patrick Carrington

Threepenny Omelet

You arrive once a week in white.

I wait for you and the gas bill
in a hallway with a crazy key

and if it snows or dogs
have gnawed their leashes

and run free, I sit on cold tiles
imagining how this week's words

might dress up the bedpost
with a crooked hat

or ride my thighs like a railroad,
wanting to be the mutt

who chews through the straps
waking wraps on my wrists

to keep me from you. To think
you won't come because this

is the blizzard that stops
appointed rounds or you're

trapped in a parked car inside
a leather satchel. To think

if postal rates go up unannounced
I might lose you, that we

are that fragile. To think a stamp
could send me up the stairs

alone today to eat eggs covered
in pepper and my grimy dreams.