Just Passin’ Through

a Zuihitsu

Missing:
Old Spice, your beer can collection, hours, tomatoes, my mother’s red lamp,
friends, manzanita, glasses, warm hands: lover-sized.

On Tuesday I search my pockets, find a quarter, lost key, dog treat, but not my stone, no stone. It had been something to caress, warm, worn, a groove down the middle. Dropped by an anonymous God. It must be in a stranger’s pocket somewhere.

I’m impatient at the bottom of the hour.
I haven’t finished
my thoughts. I’m waiting
for yellow,
this moment
already evaporated.

Passin’ through, passin’ through

I keep trying to pull the rope through
a hole in the fence, but the knot hesitates.
Thinking about knots
is like thinking about death: the rope slips
past my fingers
but catches its breath
in a hitch.

Glad that I ran into you

Clouds seem too certain to argue with, but what do I know? Their agenda
more cantankerous than mine. Pelicans stitch a fine line across the gray
arrogance, small arrows seeking refuge.

How can I thread that needle?

Sometimes happy, sometimes blue

Thinking about it, reality
is not as cold-blooded as
adoration. The public lusts
to devour its heroes.

#2 Blackwing pencil: the truth is, once the line is drawn, its faint imprint never leaves.

Words
like bones,
long
buried.
Can they be dug up
pieced together?

Tell the people that you saw me passin’ through

I never missed the $60 I left on your doorstep.