Fate
I’ve forgotten my past lives. Like a blind, black dog wandering a night highway, I’m making the best of it. Without its water, a sea would be a desert. Even bad dreams can answer good questions. I never let a disaster go to waste. A river of voltage flows inside me, whatever happens, happens for a reason. Each time I aim with my eyes closed, I hit the bullseye. I make it look like an accident.
*
Know Thyself
Pointy and loud, the geese, heading in a southerly direction, bark at a horse-gray sky. Is it any wonder? At breakfast, I apologize to my sunny side-up eggs. Like a bad actor, I give an unforgettable performance. Everyone has grown tired of reading books about books. Like New York, New York, or a forest for the trees, it’s just mise en abyme. Fortunately, it’s nothing serious. Sometimes you play your best during rehearsals. Yesterday, for instance, I was just going through the motions, but I had all my ducks in a row. My ornithologist reminded me that beauty is only skin deep, and that brain eating isn’t the weirdest thing that happens in the animal kingdom. Of course, we know so little of others, and almost nothing at all of ourselves. Great Tits! I exclaimed.
*
As I Pull into the Rest Stop on Interstate 95
Like a passing storm, I move from state to state. Today, I’m an experiment. I pass the time as the time passes me. Listening to the uphill music, I synchronize myself with a day more beautiful than it should be. A lake swallowed by fog, I’m still and quiet as I receive the signals. Although the firearms charges were dropped, Lavender says I’m an unreliable witness, that my story is always changing, but I keep my balance, despite the crowded decibels. I told her that bees visit only one kind of flower at a time. It helps them to concentrate. She smiled her haiku smile and asked, Do you think God likes to dance? Nothing lasts forever, but it’s good to be rehabilitated. Now I can go inside myself, where there’s no one else, but me. Up ahead, on the highway, I see a state sign, it’s blue and silver letters, sharp as sunlight streaming through broken glass. There’s a crowd of cars in the parking lot. I reach under the seat and feel the cold, smooth metal barrel. Connecticut welcomes me.
