The milk man died last week.  I didn't
know him well, just enough to know his favorite
chew and how much he hated Fritos.

I knew his lover and her worn-out
windbreaker, her frizzled hair as gold
as her Marlboros.  I sold her a pack of silvers

once and she nearly snapped my neck.
They take (took?) their tobacco dead
seriously.  She hasn't come back

to work yet, though her five allotted
days of grief are over.  The empty
milk crates just aren't empty anymore.

I didn't wait long
for the milkman to arrive
but instead of milk he had
liquid cyanide
and I didn't know how to tell him
that I was all set with that
so I paid him, zipped my lips
and decided that was that.