Her Second-Worst Date

He was just what she’d never
wanted, and then she noticed

he smelled slightly of pine
and wood smoke, just a whiff,

but it was like finding the missing
hours, a separate life

that had somehow gone on
without her. He talked on and on

about something of no
interest, and even then

she knew he wasn’t
a match, but his aroma

made her feel like
an empty chair in the corner

that she herself had ignored.
Sometimes the rain washes you

out to sea. And now
she wants to go back and drag

the past by its scruff
back within reach. She sees

she loves something she left
behind. It feels like

a gift, this recognizing that
nothing, no thing, simply

because it was forgotten,
need remain nothing.

Office Party for the Birthday Boy

Yeah, life is all fuzz
and fizz and fun, and the proof is in

the construction-paper cut-out
balloons of many colors. It’s now

a party. Officially. Uh-huh.
The sparkling grape juice is extra

sparkly in plastic cups and the little
cubes of cheddar cheese are truly

manna from heaven. Even though
it feels like I died in childbirth,

this is just where I’ve always
wanted to be and so I lift

my plastic cup of extra sparkly
grape juice to you and thank you

each and all. Like you, I wonder
why Saturday comes only

once a week. This tiny well-
intentioned moment will fade because

it should. Cheers. The pity is
there are no real balloons to pop.

Thirteen O’Clock

He’s befuddled. Time won’t behave. It’s all
falling apart, rubble from a temple, the roof

caved in, and a carpet of moss across
the limestone floor. It feels like standing

in an empty world. It feels like expecting
nothing, with a firm faith that when it

arrives, it will be right on time.
It feels like waiting for the clock

to strike thirteen. Numbers, numbers, numbers
all in a jumble. A sky beneath the trees.

an egg unlaid. There is no effect
because there is no cause.

He fears his internal gears have unsprung.
Paint unpeels. His wife unloves him, and his

daughter is only a wish. This is a dream,
a panic attack, a lifelong confusion. He is

an old child who slips one wooden block
beneath another and builds a tower from top

to bottom. Sometimes he notices that the room
he lives in has no windows. Eternity

equals thirteen after thirteen after
thirteen. He’s sure if he stares long enough

at the hour hand, it will finally show
that a straight line is a circle.

Jeff Mock is the author of Ruthless. His poems appear in The American Poetry Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, New England Review, The North American Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. He directs the MFA program at Southern Connecticut State University.