Ebb And Flow - Dustin Vado

I watched an open bed truck stacked with tanks
arrive with its weekly delivery

of chemicals, exposed for the world to see
the poisons necessary for making what we crave.

My elbow resting on my knee,
and my face planted on my fist

melancholy, smeared with a nicotine twist
gapes for music as I watch it leave.

A breath through blackened lungs
is only a wave on the ebb and flow

of the moods of the day we tow
from go to stop til sleeping again, still.

The truck is making its rounds
to laymen, paymen, and lab coats

consigning a warning that floats
past herds of blindfolded mice

all awaiting their number in the experiment
of deep immunity to harmony.

Maybe the truck will bring a cure for melancholy
next week when I need it most,

delivering me from the tide
that drowns paymen and mice

but takes a whole of the slice
and makes the oceans still.