about jealousy in the aughts

I drove past your house five or six times that night, each time attending a funeral on the head of a screw.

I remembered you smoking outside in the stairwell while we huddled in the cold.

I remember all this like pillows on my face and pliers in my mouth. Disappear into that mountain in a brown study.

I cough my guts out, and clouds fall across the wall, the wall across the street falls before the sun. Master of manic episodes and creating them. 

 

about a connecting flight

A beautiful woman sat in the aisle seat, row 6, and I took the window. More passengers filed in, and then a man took the middle seat. He wanted to sit by her. The plane was full of conversation minutes after takeoff. The man and woman talked. They talked the whole flight. I caught bits and pieces of what he said, but nothing she said. He told some stories. One was about a time he cashed a check at a bank drive-through but at home discovered the teller gave him too much money, which he reported. What a guy: honest and so secure that he doesn't even count money when it is given to him.

 

His smothered, gentle laughs, his quiet applause at her jokes, and the sun streaming through the window onto the pages of my book—it all felt so good. 

about a late afternoon in November

The woman was hunched forward such that, approaching from behind, I only saw the back of her chair. I would not have even known she was there had the sun setting to the west not pushed our silhouettes up against the wall. In the fading day I found someone who had found privacy. Tonight we will have only a worn-out welcome.