My Trusty Bag




My Trusty Bag

I picked it to stand out
Yellow
But I forgot about mud...

My fingers trace
The zipper
Remembering that broken pull tab
I skip lightly over it
Running over teeth, my fingers
land
And pull
And slide in

My fingers know
The outline of every pen
The creases and lines
The sound the blue one makes
When you click it
The feel of the red one's cap
As you roll it across the table

The chairs may change
Rolling
Cushioned
Hard
But my fingers leave the desktop
And reach
(I do not need to look)
And find the chapstick
Short and smooth and round
I wiggle off the cap
The feel on my lips
Familiar.

My fingers search for every buckle
When I walk
They slip into the loops
And pull at the straps
Anxious
Always
Mostly.

With practiced motion
I swing and hold
And the bag lands in my arms with a twist
My water bottle comes out,
My ring finger supports the cap
And my thumb presses.
The water cooler bubbles.
Some fill quickly
The one in G building is slow.
I sip, the cold in my mouth
Sweet.

I roll the cap along the desktop
It slips
And I know the sound it makes upon the floor.

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