Hot tar and a thirty-year-old nickle's scent
broke the evergreen air as the bleak moonlight bent
shadows into the semblance of a grated vent.

On my cell phone I repeated what I meant
to a man behind three to four months on rent.
"Three or four thousand, come on Kent,

I'll let it slide for even two. I've lent
and lent and there's a considerable dent
in my wallet." He said the check would be sent

by the next week and remarked, "Time went
out the window. It disappeared in the events
of yesterday and was spent."

A week later a check was present
in my mail. It was crisp and unbent
but was written for "172,800 minutes and no cents."

I called up Kent, that incredulous tenant,
and said, "What is this check? It's content
is silly and makes no sense." "Relent,

relent, it's for four months of pent-
up time that was spent." "Time? The rent
can't be paid with a check to augment

lost minutes!" "You agreed to it before, on my word, as a gent."