In the Present Day

She:

In the present day the roads all cave,
the bridges flower down to water,
let’s all have a remarkable time
at your expense, clochard! fulana!
He said I should sell what I sat on.
You’re nobody talking I can hear,
I replied. I went back into the rain.

In the present day nobody eats
but behind the Piggly Wiggly
(if they still exist in Fairfax, CA).
Nobody drives just like always,
thumb up and out, the same as stars
falling, or are they meteors?
All the same, they fall.

He:

I can’t get started. I keep playing the Bunny Berigan version.
It does not rhyme with this century.
Cautionary dovetails nicely.
I thought I’d pick up my horn and put it together.
I didn’t know if I should, but I started with But Not for Me,
or was it Devil in the Deep Blue Sea?

She came on with her usual beauty.
She walked like she was going somewhere
better. I’m a deep sea diver,
I gassed. She turned around and I could see
the sky in her eyes,
I named her newly Soul of My Body.

I wish I could walk up to you and say,
How good you look! and
How many days has it been?
All our nights are dark, she said, like some other century.

(7 January 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander