Tie in My Pocket

Six-forty.
Still light.
(tie in my pocket)

Knotted this thing at ten past seven,
same half-Windsor my father taught me,
in a hallway mirror in a flat I barely see,
straightened it twice like it was going to matter,
Wore it through a meeting. Said the word "alignment."
Nobody in that room will remember the meeting.
I will not remember the meeting.
Ate a desk sandwich over the keyboard.
Six sharp, the lift drops with forty of us in it,
everybody on the numbers, nobody looks up.
Out the revolving door — the street's still warm,
the grill smoke drifting from the corner cart —
and I pull the knot loose like a man cutting rope.
The knot comes loose at the crossing.
A man at the lights gives the nod men give
when a man is plainly getting away with something.
Two bars deep it's a shape in my jacket —
folded, off duty, done —
and Monday has not crossed my mind once.

Every week they get five days of me.
Ironed, polite, on time.
They can have the man in the collar.
The rest of the man is mine.

Tie in my pocket
(loosen it, loosen it)
Friday coming up through the floor.
Five days they get — the street gets the rest.
Don't bring me my coat. I'm not going home.

Loosen it.
(loosen it)
Fold it, put it away.
(put it away)
Loosen it.
(loosen it)
Tie in my pocket.

It rides the wrong pocket now,
crushed against a receipt and a bent-up ticket stub.
Somebody drops a bassline like a staircase
and the whole club takes the first step up.
One, and you find it, and you hold it to the light
like it's evidence of a crime I nearly did.
"Who wears this?" — a man I know slightly.
"Where is he?" — he clocked off at six.
You look at me like a customs officer
who has already decided to wave me through,
then tie it slow, watching me watch you do it,
like the joke is ours now, not mine.
Two, and it's around your wrist, twice,
navy blue and completely ridiculous,
and you dance a whole song with your arm in the air
just to keep it where the streetlights hit.
Someone asks if it means something.
You say, "It means he's off duty."
Best translation I have ever heard.
I did not correct her. There was nothing to correct.

Every week they get five days of me.
Ironed, polite, on time.
They can keep the man in the collar.
This one, the loud one, is mine.

Tie in my pocket
(loosen it, loosen it)
Friday coming up through the floor.
Five days they get — the street gets the rest.
Don't bring me my coat. I'm not going home.

Half three.
Nobody's asked me what I do.
Best question nobody's asked me all week.
(loosen it)

Half past three I put my hand in the pocket
and there's nothing there but a bus ticket and lint.
It's on a chair somewhere. Or a stair. Or the roof.
It cost more than these shoes and I could not care less.
Some uniform pieces are meant to go missing.
Monday I'll buy another one.
Monday can buy its own tie.

No tie in my pocket
(lost it, lost it)
Saturday coming up through the street.
Five days they get — but not this one.
Don't bring me my coat. I'm not going home.

Loosen it.
(loosen it)
Tie in my pocket.