Not so much watched
as casually gazed at, and
not a pot but a smartphone,
which had best not boil.
No ring, not this day
lost in what, an absent
mind, thoughts of self,
not unexpected but wanted.
Distance real becomes
distance virtual, empty
later explained, words
of apology, forgiveness
but a lingering scar that
will recede, reappear
that laughter may cover
but never fully erase.
The cat is sleeping on the lanai, on the plant table among the bromeliads. The cat spends hours sleeping on the lanai when she isn’t walking on tables. There are tables on the lanai she walks on regularly. Walking on tables is forbidden we repeatedly tell her and we know she understands, but the cat reminds us that forbidden in a transitory term when you are a cat. Cats, she says, must go where they want, consequences be damned. And, she adds, I know you will always forgive me.
I was the adoptee,
was the whole for years, until.
It is always the until
that is your undoing, was
mine when she
remarried, then two births.
I was one third then, never
again truly whole and when
she died I discovered
in her will I was only
one twentieth, and
then never even that.
I want to forget her,
forget them, deny
them, but all I
know how to do is forgive.
Today I should receive the letter
that I sent to myself twenty years ago,
telling me what I should be, where I
should be, who I should be, for the me
of twenty years ago was, by his own
admission, far smarter than I am, although
I am here and he is nowhere to be found.
If the letter does not come, I will sit down
and write to myself twenty years ago,
expressing my disappointment with him,
with his lackadaisical manner, ignoring
his epistolary obligations, content with
what, who and where he was without
though for where he was going, who
he would be, what he would do in life.
Ultimately, I will forgive him of course,
much as he did twenty years ago when,
on the day he expected to receive
a letter from me, the me who is
he twenty years hence, the letter
did not arrive for I have more
important things to do today than
to sit down and write to him, he would
not appreciate what I have to say,
so, it is time to get on with my life.
First Published in Cerasus Magazine (UK), Issue 3, 2021
Even a cat knows when the screen is on Zoom, you sit and wait. Or stick your head in the picture so all can acknowledge your presence. Either works, and you know patience is not a virtue, but at times a necessity. You are a cat, after all. Patience is for dogs, poor beasts, having to be walked regularly. There is no freedom being a dog, and when they call you bad, that day is shot for you and you slink off. But cats must sometimes be patient when they are on Zoom, but it gives you time to plot your revenge, which the humans will never expect, but always soon enough forgive.
I want so to say that i feel
your pain, but we’d both
know that was an utter lie.
I can tell you abut my pain,
describe it at great length,
and I will be utterly disappointed
when you admit you can only
imagine it as a reflection
of your own pain, which I
am certain doesn’t begin
to rise to the level of mine,
but that is your failure, and I
will forgive it for I know
that my pain is unique and
beyond even your imagination.
So let us just agree that each
of our pains is beyond
the contemplation of the other,
secure in our own uniqueness.
an old writer and his words 