Column B Poem by Seamus O' Brian

A building is being
dismantled across the street
from where I sit
reducing a laceration—
sustained when the
errant wobbling end
of a walker walked
into the serpiginous
crack of a sidewalk
catapulting the owner
of the yet to be lacerated
leg into a yet to be no longer
innocently bystanding
shrubbery—
I, reducing, as I mentioned,
said laceration into
a series of checked
boxes and items
from column A
but none, unfortunately,
from column B.

Impressed that I can
actually audibly discern
the straining shudder
of the earth mover's jaw
as it struggles
with some momentous article
of debris from what was a
previously non-descript
manufacturing facility
where perhaps Latinas
on their lunch break
gossiped with arched eyebrows
and knowing looks while picking
at the Saran wrap protecting
their Media Noche sandwiches
from the fine particulate residue
of their forty hour lives, but now
the shuddering steel jaws of tomorrow
gnaw away at the bones of
what was once a grand design,
and I have discovered that,
oh yes, I can check heart failure
in column B.

No longer driving. Check.

Recommend Assisted Living. Check.

Mr. Gingrich is also a widower,
and- with his recently acquired
unstable gait- may I humbly suggest
deserves an upgrade
from a 99213 status to a 99214,
which is definitely a plus for me,
but does his lacerated leg no
additional good, neither his
failing heart.


Across the street another chunk
of someone's dream
clangs into the dumpster.