Time (Ticking In My Head)

The time is now
8:00 AM. Shoppers
are already beginning
to shout at the meatcutters
that they’re holding back 
meat to crank up prices
and where is all the hamburger?

The time is now 8:30 AM.
In the checkout line a masked
but angry man is ranting how 
his 11 year old nephew
doesn’t know what the USS
Constitution is and that it’s docked
less than 50 miles from here
and what useless crap are they teaching kids
instead of that these days?

The time is now 8:40 AM.
Someone drives by laughing
as I walk to my car and
I hear the words “mask”
and “sheep” and “idiot”
and my fists tighten
around the loops of
the one overfull shopping bag that
is garroting the hand 
I might need if I have to fight.

The time is now 8:45 AM.
No less than eleven freezing people
between the store and here
holding signs asking for help 
and the only difference between 
them and me is a bad car,
a bad house to call home,
a week or so of basic food,
and the keyboard I use to beg
in place of a cardboard sign.

The time is now
9:00 AM — or never. Time to 
take the watch off so I can be
free of the ticking in my head;
free to surf the Big Wave
as it storms through all these people
waiting for a future End who can’t see
that This Is It.