early week days imitation by Sanjana Mahesh

Early Weekdays
week 5 imitation
By Sanjana Mahesh

I used to get up early on weekdays

Having to run and catch the slow yellow

ride to hell, backpack filled with undone work

forgetting the lunch I’d thrown together

No time for waffles or chocolate milk

Jealous of my mommy’s spicy omelet

Hasty goodbye and a fast flying kiss

Senior year was such a joke, I never

paid attention in class and always left

early, slept through most of it

Memories made at the most random sites

Hind sight proves I wouldn’t change anything

Thinking that prom was a big deal but then

In Corvallis, thirsty Thrusday outshines

anything suburban Portland can do

but now there’s a price to pay for parties

A toll taken on the class attendance

Since college grades matter and stuff I guess

The lectures might not help but it is

vital to my conscience that I appear

to be trying to stay on top of things

like the imitation poems, taking

math midterms without my calculator

and all the laundry that needs to get done

I guess real life is harder than high school

So it’s better to begin earlier

than later. Start earlier with the work

even though procrastination traps me

That’s why everybody becomes addicts

to coffee, red bull, monster or rockstar.

Early Sunday Morning

BY EDWARD HIRSCH

I used to mock my father and his chums

for getting up early on Sunday morning

and drinking coffee at a local spot

but now I’m one of those chumps.

No one cares about my old humiliations

but they go on dragging through my sleep

like a string of empty tin cans rattling

behind an abandoned car.

It’s like this: just when you think

you have forgotten that red-haired girl

who left you stranded in a parking lot

forty years ago, you wake up

early enough to see her disappearing

around the corner of your dream

on someone else’s motorcycle

roaring onto the highway at sunrise.

And so now I’m sitting in a dimly lit

café full of early morning risers

where the windows are covered with soot

and the coffee is warm and bitter.