full circle

had been chasing the doughnut on

the coffee shop counter…zooming

along fresh & tied to a piece of

fishing line…the carrot on the stick…

the crumbs from the table…the

bits & pieces left over from the crash.

 

grew up lonely, not accumulating

kisses, but learning from the looks &

failures of others, finding new ways to

enjoy the insignificance of existence,

seeing it all as from a train window

cruising by at speeds not yet registered

on anybody’s radar.

 

& those who had been the kiss collectors,

those who rose, they fell, the never-look-

back-on-high-school cliché rang true &

suddenly, like Dorothy knocking about her

ruby slippers, it all came round full circle.

 

walking through the old home town was

found to be funny, as the want to steer

clear of faces from the past mixed with a

recognition of the mortality which now

seemed so real, when in past it was hardly

ever talked about, except by those

interested early on in suicide---and those

that went through with it, some were

successful, some screwed themselves over

for life & some made a “cry for help”

which more than often goes unheard.

 

face to face with a former classmate, a

friend of a friend of way back when, the

absence of memory on their part seems so

baffling & it makes the wonderer wonder

about how much has happened in their life

to shake them senseless or to shake some

sense into them---either way, they have

forgotten what is remembered & so rather

than get the spoon & stir it up again,

back to the chasing of the doughnut…back to

that hanging carrot…back to the crumbs,

the bits & pieces, the anonymity of the

metropolis.