Connected

Streets empty with sunlight, birdsong,

and the sound of wheels on the road.

I stop at a store.

Five apricots and a tomato.

The saleswoman offers to wash them before she puts them in a bag for me.

On my way to the cemetery I eat the apricots first. 

One by one. They look ripe but they aren't.

 

A dog starts barking behind a fence 

“ Beware! Unknown human heading south, eating a tomato!”

The dog-network is activated, and now all bark at nothing.

The  path leading to the family crypt is scattered with pine cones. 

A wild rosebush curiously  leans over the headstone this any-day afternoon. 

I wander around the back and see it sprung from the old crypt—

perhaps from my mother’s heart.

I imagine the quiet union of caskets and roots. 

Maybe violets grow down there all year around.

My parents, having an afternoon tea, talking about all the things 

they forgot to tell me.

I pull out the stubborn weed growing through the cracks—

some humble openings into the otherworld.

I feel appreciated.

I feel loved. 

Nobody Says Hello

I walk in the rain. 

On the Danube, 

the many bridges fade into fog.

Nothing gets done. 

Nothing is never important enough.

The lines are down— 

no banking, no activation, no phone—

Promising for this misty afternoon.

A retro cheese melt and a cup of espresso

on the road.

Hellos and goodbyes come with 

the lifting of the fog.

La Salle des pas Perdu

‘ The room of lost steps’ is what they call

‘ waiting room’ in French.

Another ticket expires

come midnight.

To get a new one every morning to a destination, a mindset,-

and for each, we pay a different price. 

“ Mom, I think if you could, you would live inside your soul.”

We  wait.

IT

 

‘Sit down,’ I say, ‘sit down and think about it.’

‘About what?’ 

‘It.’ 

 

There was a time you look back and think, "Yep, that was perfect."

And it was! And you know it.

 

There was that moment when you said to yourself, "Oh my god, 

the street I live on should be named after me! I can’t believe I did it."

 There was a day when you saw her making the right decisions without you,

and you were sad and happy about it. Mostly, you were proud.

 

There was a night when being the night itself was just another dream.

It was what it was. It is, what it is.

 

There was a whole year when you thought you lost the will to live,

but you made it through and lived anyway.

 

There was an afternoon when you asked for what you wanted with no agenda, 

and it was given to you. 

 

The timeline is a jump rope. 

Jump, jump, jump.

 

Nobody is really watching. They might be curious, you might want— not 

so much to be accepted, but to be seen, understood, acknowledged. Forget 

it. As long as you’re jumping.

 

Did the world skip rope a year and tripped over checks and balances, data, and facts? 

 

True Zen. I mean, in this world, in this cocoon of a home, 

in this body, in these cells, inside this mind, there are question marks, laughing monkeys 

and sad ones, a few terrified ones that keep pulling the tails of the others, 

but the others choose not to give them the time of day. 

 

It makes sense.