Streetwatching
As kids, all we did was stand in a group and shout while looking
at the street. We talked about school
at dinner tables with people who now only loved
listening. We loved being listened to.
Years later, we still shout at the streets and talk about schools at dinner tables
and don’t listen. We always knew we’d grow up
but never knew that wouldn’t be enough.
One evening, dad said you’re only too old once a child says
you can’t do something and that
left an illegible mark. Now, there are days when nothing else
makes sense and the marks are like crystal —
pure, see-through, searing through the skin.
And yet, on days, we’ve loved our faces in broken mirrors. We’ve
walked thousands of miles, in socks that have
loved themselves red, before stopping to think, as if that were an omen – that
one stops a while only when they’re sure
about which way to go before giving everything up.
Now, we are a part of a world that doesn’t share addresses
with smiles; we’re afraid we’re contagious,
as if we weren’t before. And we still try to understand. So, we take
a high road again and love the distant sun red
before stopping, because we still look for roads in the
maps that have run their rivers dry.
