Lunch - all alone - in the middle of a small luncheonette – people together at a dozen different tables. Ooops! I forgot my newspaper so I began to read the faces of the people around me. Jaws. Eyes. Watch or phone watchers. Smile. Scowl. Okay. Not okay. I wonder what people are doing behind their skin -their mask. Is anyone watching me. Is anyone wondering what’s behind my face – inside the refrigerator of my soul?
“Poetry
makes some kind of claim of honesty.If,
at a party, I say I’m a poet,people have
a hard time of responding, almost as if I’d said I’m a priest.”
Tobias Hill,
The Independent,
August 9, 2006
“I know the feeling
on both counts.”
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
April 7, 2021
MY MOM
My sister Mary called today and said, “It’s mom’s anniversary. “Ooooh!”
It’s April 7th. I had forgotten. She was killed. Hit and run – on her way to church and then work. Today, April 7, 1987. “Ooooh!” I still haven’t cried. I said that to someone and they suggested, “Listen to Irish music.” I tried that. It didn’t work. “Oooooh!”