Closing

Holding brooms by the bottom
of their handles, the store clerks
tried to sweep the pigeon back out
the doors of the grocery store.
They were eventually successful,
and celebrated by stuffing all the
items that had been contaminated into a
trash can with wheels like an office
chair.

They used a liquid the same color as
grape soda, but with a thicker consistency,
to remove the lines that formed over time on
the aisle numbers. On break, when they were
bored, they’d sometimes talk about how drunk
they got on their days off. They both usually
tried to capitalize with an insane moment like
the time when the older of the two of them
broke his front teeth on the counter at a diner.

When the night started to reach for the end of
its life the two of them carried heavy crates
of garbage out to the dumpsters and smoked.
They listened to their own personal music through
the bad speakers on their phones, and mopped the
floors until the entire ceiling was reflected back
at itself. They walked to their cars with heavy
hoods covering their faces, and they couldn’t
hear the wind silencing everything around
them, or the see the sky that was right there
for anyone to notice.