a chance meeting
the city has made us tired
and the grocery store is packed
with old farts
my wife is helping me find
a low sodium soup
so that my chest and heart
don’t start burning by sundown
when he rounds the corner with his kid
he startles us
it’s always odd seeing the characters
from the bar
outside in the real world
it proves that you and they exist
but there he is
there is his five year-old son
a basket full of food
and a six-pack of budweiser
snug in a tight corner
we talk small talk
talk about books
and then don’t know what else to say
he tells us that he’ll be
coming back to the bar soon
shrugs and gives a look
because we all know
that something has happened
to him in the last few weeks
but no one is quite sure what
so he shakes my hand
pats my wife on the shoulder
i say goodbye to his son
who only knows me
as one of daddy’s friends
and then we part
my wife and i continue down the aisle
looking for the soup
healthy heart tomato
or low sodium chicken noodle
but it doesn’t really matter
they’re all bad for you
no matter how good
the packaging says
they are.
Yeah, it's all bad for you. Seeing someone out of the element you know them is also bad. I always wondered if that guy was thinking the same thing about me.
ReplyDeleteI really like your poems because a lot of what you write relates directly to my life (or past life)