At Work
Bucky lifted the red, white, and blue Pepsi boxes
lifted them one-by-one out of the delivery truck
and carried them into the back
of the loading dock
at the grocery store.
“Have a nice day,” he said to the men who helped him unload.
Finally he was done
that was his last stop and he was definitely ready
ready to get home after sitting
in that stuffy, sweaty truck all day long.
He sped down the highway and back to the warehouse
the warehouse which smelled of old trash and the body odor
of a hundred workers.
He walked to the locker room
changed out of his ugly, faded, blue jumpsuit
and grabbed his sandy colored, torn knapsack.
Bucky headed to the front of the building to punch his time card
where he almost slipped on some spilled, unidentifiable substance
on the filthy warehouse floor.

In Transit
Bucky Buckman opened the door to the outside of the warehouse
only to find that it was pouring rain
and the lot outside had already started to flood.
He hustled to get to the bus station a few blocks away
and breathed a sigh of relief when the
bright blue, graffitied PACE
bus stop sign came into his view.
He boarded the half empty bus
and chose a seat way in the back
to avoid having to make small talk
with any of the passengers
in the front seats.
The bus smelled like a mixture
of many different perfumes and colognes
along with the greasy fast food smell
from the man a few seats up
eating a Big Mac.
The bus passed through six, seven, eight different areas
before it finally reached his, the last stop
and he was the only one left on the bus by then.
“Last stop, have a nice night, sir,” called the bus driver
as Bucky stood to get off.
“Thanks, you too,” he replied.

At Home
As he walked up to the front door
the front door of his white, paint chipped house
Bucky stopped to get the mail
out of his blue mailbox with the giant hole in the top
where the rain left his mail soaked.
Inside the house, the smell of fast food and cigar smoke lingered
on the white turned yellow-brown walls
and dusty, gray carpet.
He shuffled into the kitchen to grab a cold beer
and then to the living room where he sat
sat on the tattered, beige couch, kicked off his work boots
and turned on the tiny, computer-screen-sized TV.
He flipped through the channels for a while
and then stopped on Channel 7
to watch the 10 o’clock news.
“The writer of the wildly popular, new romance series
about a girl named Tiffany remains a mystery
as the first ever anonymous author releases the third installment in the series,”
says the newscaster with enthusiasm.
Bucky shook his head in disbelief
over the bizarre news stories they seemed to air these days
and then headed down the narrow hallway to his bedroom.
He sat down casually at his old, wooden desk,
opened his worn out notebook, and began writing
steadily writing, under the heading “Chapter 1: Tiffany’s New Love.”