Exam Hall At The Scrapyard

A drunk at the bar,
packs of stray dogs,
scrapyards of cars,
a tree sawn into logs

classical music
drowned out by builders' drills.

Time does what rust does:
flakes us at the edges,
threads us thin.

People call it fate,
but it feels more like questions
printed on cheap paper.

We sit in the long bright hall
of our days,
no one explaining the exam,

only this:

you write what you can
with the life you've been given,
and hand it in.