Every Wednesday from September through May we attend a rigorous choir rehearsal for two hours at Raleigh’s Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral. We arrive home at our usual retire-to-the-bedroom time, far too wired to think about climbing into bed for some quick reading and lights out. (We’re old, and heck, I’ve been turning out the lights between 9:30-10 p.m. for the past 30 years.) At our age, staying up another two hours or so, as we do, is akin to traveling a couple time zones to the west. We wake up a bit fazed, disoriented, run down—more so if we indulged a nightcap the night before. Several years ago, we realized that our attitudes toward the next day resembled how we used to think of Fridays: no big responsibilities faced us the remainder of the week, particularly after noon; we usually felt like knocking off early and grabbing a drink; it seemed to be a day just made to relax and have fun. Therefore…First Friday was born, the opening act to Second Friday, Real Friday, harbinger of the weekend.

Today’s particularly fuzzy: it seemed a good time to write an ode to the day.

First Friday, A-K-A Thursday,
when all your cares dissipate,
dissolved in to-do tasks left
unfinished. Thursday greets
Wednesday's final push to
birth Accomplishment with,
"so what?" and "what's minimal?"
Creeping emotionally 
on hands, knees, you find 
one singular moment,
Accomplisment balanced
against Surrender; do you
give in to the latter at
two or at four, because it
always ends that way,
doesn't it? Energies 
wind down. First Friday
knows Second Friday,
"Real" Friday will take
up slack, relishing her
finish-with-a-bang 
sense of theatrics, 
her role as Gateway 
to Weekend. Thursday 
smugly smiles. Her
finish occurred 
before her start.

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79/100
100 poems in 100 days (and that’s three more weeks!)