on the tram

kafka said a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
i thought about that line on the bus today,
somewhere between a man eating a sandwich
and an ad for a dental clinic.

nothing was frozen. nothing broke.
i got off at my stop.

that’s most days. that’s most of a life.
the axe stays in the drawer
and you’re just a man on a bus with a sandwich behind you.

i don’t think kafka would mind.
he worked at an insurance office
and wrote at night, badly, in a small apartment,
and asked for all of it to be burned.