roobois

have you noticed how, in the rearview mirror, the little wrinkles under your eyes have become just a little deeper, and did you wonder, today, if the guy in his twenties, who called you and your partner up looking for a little guidance, might have noticed, and maybe that's what, in the end, made you seem more like you knew what you were talking about when it came to matters of being alive in this world, having lived the struggle to this point, having already been shaken to your very core by the unexpected meanness of the world, and having survived it, and come out feeling like you are doing just fine?

fine -- a fine afternoon walk to the teahouse leads to the meeting of this new young friend, you can call him your friend even though you never met him, and you sit outside, together with the one you love, and go from one question to the next, thinking and trying to say, like, how do you account for the decisions you've made, and why do, all of a sudden, decisions seem less like decisions and more like some sort of roll of the dice, some kind of cosmic kaleidoscope that set you turning and falling into strange but colorful patterns, suddenly there and seemingly together, and just as suddenly gone and rearranged? if he asks how do you know, when did you know, how did you decide, what was it like, what's it like now, you will pour the red roobois tea and sip and think it's such a wide, wide past to return to. you recall, in exact ways not, at first, the times and places and people but, more accurately, the unbelievable crisis of not knowing, when nothing made sense, and it all seemed terribly new and unavoidable, and you reach for an answer but you cannot quite grasp it. you listen with care.

how the story of not knowing must begin with trying to put into words what you do not know how to say, how weird this feels, how it makes you so sensitive and shy. when was the last time you felt this? what to compare it to? what the street smells like when new rain falls on hot asphalt. what leaves sound like when breezes blow at night. like sweeping the dust out of a corner -- you're not touching it with your hand, but you know something's working because your holding the other end of the broom. how to not be alone in the world when you start everything over. finding your way around the apartment at night with no lights on.

the sun starts to set. you smile and hug your new friend. he is red like roobois. you walk home with your beloved and think about the new wrinkles. you don't mind -- you like it. so much more to go. it's not even half-over.

in fifty words or less

how the day has passed: overcast and balmy, hammers and the boom of construction, with holler and echo. before me, an empty cup of green tea. the keyboard's lettered black squares huddle safely together -- snug chiclets, in a row, magically making paragraphs of light under my fingers.