The Fast Lane

Her life is like a labyrinthine drive-through
where checkout girls and boys will rudely tell her
she didn’t order fries. She must survive through
the whirl of traffic as a city-dweller.
She’s bought so many pairs of shoes and dresses,
some of them hibernate; they hang forgotten
in the closet, in the garret. All the stresses
commuting to a job she thinks as rotten
as rancid refuse give the gal neuralgia.
At night she views reality TV
or, now and then, old sitcoms for nostalgia.
And then each dawn she dives into a sea
where creatures meet head-on, fighting for air,
where very few will ever get their share.