I've been riding the bus from time to time. The regular riders know each other by name or, at least, by reputation and will talk to, or about, each other as if it were a preliminary rehearsal for a "Dean Martin Roast". On one recent occasion a particularly lonesome soul was perfectly willing to drag me kicking and screaming into conversation. I went with the flow and was exposed to a lesson in, well, space entomology you might say. Listening courteously, the man across from me told me that, "the fire ants down in Florida are getting worse and worse. Do you know they have fire ants on the space shuttle?" I didn't know that. Now, I suppose, I do.

PEACEFUL PLACE

It was a fortune, a random luck of the draw
fleeing one of those Chinese cookies
smashed at my feet, with bits and pieces and crumbs
forming the foundation of a directive, a sign:
“Find a peaceful place where you
can make plans for the future” it said.

Without pause, with an image of you
I wondered, not quite out loud,
“Are you my peaceful place?”
What future beyond these stolen moments
can fairly be made, it’s diffuse glow
flawed and accused and alleged?

- not as a thief who feels a shame or remorse,
nor the unfaithful with secrets to keep -
but like the forewarned fool ignorant of caution,
unencumbered with discernment or assessment of clues,
incapable of restraint from impractical jabber
even in sight of losing his head.