Tuesday

Tuesday 

by Richard Allen Taylor

is grossly underrated, glad to be here, eager to get going.
Unlike Monday, it doesn’t care that the weekend is over

or that it was not designated a national holiday.
Tuesday is morning news and handy tool, the good dog

that comes when you call, the horse saddled
and ready to ride. It’s different from Wednesday,

which wants to be Friday, or Thursday, already dreaming
about the weekend. It’s the second pot of coffee,

fresher than the first, the ball already rolling. It’s not at all
like Friday, watching the clock, making dinner reservations.

You seldom find Tuesday hanging out in bars, unless it’s on a business trip
and has nothing better to do. If it stays out late, it knows

Wednesday will complain. Tuesday is a go-getter,
the kind of day everyone wants on their team. It almost never

gets invited to weddings or parties (except Mardi Gras) but more
than its share of funerals and insurance seminars. Tuesday works

more but has less time off than almost any other day. Even when
it goes on vacation, it has to tag along with Saturday

and Sunday and the rest of the family, who have already planned
the trip and scheduled the activities, usually without asking

Tuesday’s opinion. Tuesday is bells ringing, whistles blowing,
the fire engine leaving the station, not the most popular

day of the week, but the kind you might pick
as a business partner, the day most likely to succeed.

From Something to Read on the Plane (Main Street Rag Publishing Co., 2004).
This poem first appeared in The Powhatan Review (Fall 2003).