Category: DayPoems

Before the new faucet
was chosen and brought
after much deliberation,
I saw him at 59th and 3rd.

He almost didn’t
recognize me in
my old sunglasses;
he said I looked like
Elton John

My new dress
($15)
is short, 
off-the-shoulder,
a red, loose-fitting cotton
marked with white
flowers and birds.

It felt like summer,
before girls
had to wear bras
(but not now)

Strutting eastward
on 59th
like a socialite 
lost from the Hamptons,
it was like easy living
before Monday’s grind

(and it would be nice
if we would have a
working faucet 
before our vacation)

The dog days
of summer 
are still present,
even with 
new appliances 
and dresses
to distract us.

Making up for lost time yesterday,
I stopped almost dead
after 8000 paces;
after consuming a salmon Benedict 
and two helpings of mixed greens,
I pick out my mint leaves 
from my Caribbean mule 
and crushed them between my teeth,
as I spied with my little eyes
the other beautiful people
in the French cafe on Sixth Avenue,
celebrating their birthdays…

I still have ways to go
before the storm starts.

We didn’t visit his house yesterday;
every time I go there with him
I’m in between-times,
seeing souvenirs from the past,
and my first memories of knowing him,
and possible futures, the parties
held there with loved ones,
now here and those maybe in-waiting,
the babies coming thanks to 
his siblings, all singing
the old songs around the table.

But when I visit the house presently,
I feel out of step, as if the
between-times are too near
to touch, or to reach,
which makes reality sometimes 
both boring and confusing.

Why do I feel this way?

He is now well-dressed 
due to his mother’s dictations,
yet today they are too busy 
with other things to visit,
so we go home after rehearsal 
at the Temple,
one hour traveling for a 45-minute
run-through, 
the songs are coming through,
and the times are often changing,
here and between every single line.

I wonder how
all these threads
of humankind 
weave into each other,
like distant characters 
written for the same novel,
and as the plot thickens,
all the colors run together,

Or, a singular note,
starts a fugal phase,
which begins to change
the tonal quality 
within a symphony,
you can still sing the theme
that first note helped to make.

Each good deed 
and kind word
forms an attachment
one can’t live without.
What is it you need?
and have you heard…
the sweetest intentions 
whispered into a shout.

What will happen 
to us in 10 years or so?
For many of us,
we will never know…

Until that day,
when our threads finally fray,
let’s say we will all be loved 
eventually,
because each of us
is a singular note in the world’s
longest-playing symphony,
and a thread 
in a galaxy-large tapestry.