Smithfield

Standing still is defiant of nature

and she's cruel.  Worse than

the pock-marked woman marching with

a crude sign hung around her neck.

Off-center.

She pushed a paper around my closed hand

and told me to think of the children.

I try not to.

One day they'll ask me why

and I will look to the left and

if I say nothing then I won't be a liar.

I'm already across the street when the punctuation cuts

through the wind and over the x-ing pedestrians. Or jaywalking.

When I was younger I said it phonetically.  

Z-ing.

Bastard.

Is that any way to end a conversation?

She fled from persuasion as if it was on fire.

I love when you cut to the chase, but I hate

idioms. What's wrong is wrong

when you're speaking to the right ear.  And I

need more than a pamphlet.

I grinned at the memory of z-ing.

39 years, they've been married, but I'm stumbling

through 34.

I guess that's just my vibe.

A trio of policemen share sunflower seeds,

and I think ontological certainty, a phrase

that meant nothing until a woman taught

it to me, and now I seek it in everything

but it seems to be nowhere.

There will be another train, eventually.