I Know

I Know

I know these towns the train only passes through
Because it always has. I know this station bar where
Men nurse their pale ales, waiting for the game to start, 
For the winning lottery numbers to be called.
I know these men who change their sheets and shirts 
Less often than they should, their grown daughters 
Who visit them once a year tell them
Over their shoulders upon leaving. I know that
They regret not buying that property in the 70s
So that now in their seventies they wouldn’t be 
Dependent on sons who seem to have forgotten
They haven’t always wiped their own asses,
Though I know that these men didn’t do that either.
I know that their wives, who they’re estranged from now,
Raised the kids, then left the day they were sure
They could fend for themselves.
I know these politics, the stew of resentment and fear
Kept on the back burner for years and boiling
Over now every time they duck into the dark tabac
For cigarettes because it takes the man who sells them
A moment to glance up from his phone
Upon which he’s FaceTiming his wife and newborn daughter
In some hot poor place he’s working to get them out of.
I know that the violence with which he pounds the pack
Into his palm is the violence he wants but can’t
Do to everyone save for the three or four friends
He meets every evening at the station bar.
I know that the one who sighs and rises from the table first
Knows that the others will begin talking about him
As soon as he’s out of earshot. I know that
He prefers to take the long way home, in no rush 
To get back to the dim apartment a quarter
Of a century of alimony left him when she left him.
I know the taste of the meal he heats up, the sad way 
It turns on the glass plate in the microwave,
The false cheeriness of its it’s-done ding.
I know that he leaves his plate in the sink
For the man he’ll wake up as tomorrow to wash.
And I know the way he jabs the remote at the TV
When he decides he’s seen enough.