For Billy Collins & Carolyn Forché
His thumbs and fingers ripple across the keyboard
of the smartphone with incredible ease. If only I
could pick my nose with that kind of efficiency.
It just takes practice I guess.
Every so often he stops and stares at the screen.
Is he composing the next great American novel, or
an Internet search for an erotic sex toy? The mall is
busy.
Teenage boys stare at the naked mannequin as
the girls giggle. Who are all these people?
Some capture my eye long enough to turn away.
Others turn away long enough to avoid my eye.
Some just don’t fit my eye at all. A big man is
strolling in my direction. The young lady with him
is wearing a polished and printed sun dress
with brassy sandals and a thin gold ankle bracelet.
It’s fastened nicely above a tight heel strap. They
are holding hands, and while they never look at
one another they smile at me in not a casual,
or perfunctory manner.
I smile in reply, hopefully with the same kind of
sincerity, and as long as I can. As they pass I
notice below the man’s dreadlocks his T-shirt
touches the fleshy cleavage of the crack of his ass.
Just above the waist band of multi-coloured briefs,
his black cheeks are barely covered by baggy work
pants cut-off just below the knees; the back
pockets are the size of box cars.
I watch them until they disappear from view.
And, continue to watch in anticipation of their
return. Why won’t they come back? Where are
they going? How will they get there?
Did our brief encounter; quickly detached,
dispatched and never to be reattached, add
something more to our lives? I wish I knew.
I guess I’ll have to wait until
a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis pupa
suspended from a virgin universe, and wafts
wistfully above the opposite side of space
and time.
Châz
