Temporary

So, damn, here it is,
a whole week gone  
of my four week job. 
Only three weeks left
to go.  

 I have found it fun
and am wishing 
it was lasting longer,
but I don't look back. 

 It will be a month,
then a year,
then a life beyond,
and I will wonder

 how time 
stretched ahead
in a landscape 
that became a chute 
and I was sliding down
on waxed paper.

 I won’t be around.

 Then one
who sits at this desk, 
will no doubt
be young
and will type to songs
I never heard 
and won't remember. 

 Perhaps this desk
and this building
and this town 
will be soon gone:
a bomb or a plague, 
perhaps invaded by locusts.

 Maybe earth 
itself
will explode 
and I'll speed away 

 into an expanding
future.

 In any case, 
work’s over for today.
I can go home 
because it's Friday, 
the work week done;
I'll drink a beer, 
watch TV for a time, 
go to bed,
and sleep late
tomorrow.

 until nine or ten 
or eleven 
and have no fear 
because I know 
it’s Saturday.

 I will set
all nervousness
aside,
put to rest my worry,
because the next day 
after is Sunday.
I'll lie in bed
and read 
the Sunday paper.

 All life, I know, is temporary.

 One day I'll come
to a page 
in the calendar 
that's blank,
but it's not today;
and tomorrow
I know
is Saturday:
it’s my one day off!