When I enter
the musty, worse than mediocre
dayroom, someone has taken
my red vinyl chair.
Chrome companionably flaky;
last in the row, and scuffed
but whole enough to retain
the ancient foam -
dessicated, friable
as the stuff of a sulfur asteroid -
that sifts from the others .
mine

for a time longer than time.
Mine; more important
than the mediocre view
it shares, or the shuffler
in faded jammies
now sitting in it.

Should I stab him? with what? Let's review -
should I stab him
or punch him?  The powers
would disapprove, and send me
farther from that chair
which is my one base in this universe.

Should I talk to him? Politely? Perhaps
it's a test.
One knows that tests are more frequent
the less they entail advancement.
I may not even be rewarded
with my chair.

When life cracks, there's always
someone to ask you
"What's your next step?" and think
he serves life thereby.
He does.  It doesn't care.
A lucid voice among gibberers,
if I can stop hovering
I'll go beyond words .
sick and officious eyes
will turn and find I am no longer there.

   Frederick Pollack