Urban Turtles Poem by Terence Winch

Small green couch in the living room. I come home at night and sit in it.
'Law & Order' is on TV. I have a glass of cheap cabernet and make eggs
for dinner. It gets later and later. I hit the mute button and listen
to the old clock on the piano tick, then tock. I wash my dishes.
I choose tomorrow's work clothes.

I said to my barber, 'Give me a haircut that looks exactly
like Frank Sinatra's wig,' and he did. My barber is a very nice, gay Egyptian.
I take a hot bath and listen to right-wing talk radio, which I find very relaxing.
I keep wondering where everyone went.

The dog was just here, I'm positive. I can smell dog. There's another
strange odor in the bathroom. Perfumey. Or maybe it's Lysol or 409.
The toothpaste is cinnamon flavored.
I spray a 'Fresh Outdoors' scent throughout the house.

Maybe I am all alone. Which is not what I really want. I want a party
going on in every room. I want guests in the guest room. I want people taking baths in the bathroom. I consult Each Day a New Beginning for today:
'We have judged our world and all the situations and people in it
in terms of how their existence affects our own.'

I remember a conversation I had this afternoon with a colleague
about urban turtles. Could they really survive in the fast-paced city? Sure, he
said.
I don't really care. A friend of mine died in November and I think about him
all the time. I stopped calling him because he never initiated contact with me
and I didn't like that. But a week or so before he died, he said to me:
'I always loved seeing you. I loved being in your presence.'
Now he is always talking to me from the beyond, as he had threatened to.
It's his voice, then the tick tock of the clock, then his voice again.