I confided to my friend another okcupid faux pas.
Still about Jack--
Still disclosing the crime that killed him.
She said it was manipulative.
That I had to stop it.
That I was selfish.
That I wanted to recruit new mourners to my side.
It prevented the woman, ever, from revealing herself.
I had to get past this she said.
So,
I’m walking down the street completely self-absorbed,
looking for a new spot to get my haircut.
Her lecture finds an appreciative audience
who sits for hours in coffee shops replaying her withering lines.
I'm barely aware I am not performing my daily observations
of Rome and her cats,
of a bruised banana peel
on a pedestal
supporting a massive granite column, and bam!
sledge hammer!
bam!
breaking through from the out there,
bam!
throwing me up against the squad car,
bam!
kicking my legs apart.
cuffing my dithering thoughts behind my back.
See the stop sign, bam!
See the white enameled crosswalk, bam!
See silhouetted branches
like a nest of snakes
against the mottled woolen sky!
See the web of hemorrhaged capillaries
blossom on her face our first mother's day.
