Poem: Ragtag Lives by Mark Tulin

The young man is wearing a black cap
with a certified atheist logo in gold lettering
The woman dons a purple alpaca sweater
with her free-range ostrich eggs in her backpack
Their pug is sipping some raw ginger water
with its butt recently bleached and waxed

They both have sleeve tattoos
and funky nose rings and stretched-out
ear gauges and they seem to be talking
more with their hands and tight abs
than with their tongues and eyes

as they eat toasted wheat germ bagels
with strawberry jam and gulp down tariff-free coffee
with goats milk and two shots of whatever’s trendy
as if they’re psyched for an apocalyptic afternoon

in their ragtag clothes and their organic minds
and their dog who’s too sore to sit down
They try to figure out what to do with their lives
reading coffee grounds from the bottom of a ceramic cup.

©️mft