The asterisk calls. It leaves a message:

It says, You stood me up. You don’t return
my calls or texts. You didn’t go to work
yesterday. I wanted to ask whom you met
for lunch. What did you eat, and where
did you go afterwards? I waited at the bar
till 1 a.m. then took a walk and fell asleep
on a bench at the end of the pier. I woke
quite stiff, feeling crumpled at the edges.
No one bothered me, not even the seagulls
raucous for their breakfast. From above,
I must have looked like an ink-colored speck,
mere footnote amid the city’s detritus.

My fingers hover above the keypad as I listen
to the prompt: To erase, press *7.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Asterisk.

September day

The Rain in My Purse:

The day was September, cool oozing from the dying wildflowers.

Cease beeping, we said to just about everyone.

We put up a sign outside the church: Park your car, forget your anger.

The leaves clattered, practically metallic, the café tables round as coins.

Asterisk

To be small is to be distant
& vice versa.

The asterisk calls.
It leaves a message.

You turn it all the way up:
it sounds like a small fan.

In some parallel universe
all the stars look like this

& books with too many footnotes
collapse into black holes.

Tangents

from Fr. ricochet (n.) “the skipping of a shot, or of a flat stone on water,” in earliest use … fable du ricochet, an entertainment in which the teller of a tale skillfully evades questions, and chanson du ricochet, a kind of repetitious song; of uncertain origin… from 1769.

 

Clouds gather. They’re always gathering. Sometimes the black dog comes to call. It brings
a little news of you: how you hardly think of home since you’ve split, sprinted, ricocheted.

Into the giant Sears Roebuck Catalog of the universe, I’ve sent countless orders.
Sometimes I can’t figure out actual deliveries from those that have ricocheted.

Light rain bounces off the pavement at summer’s end. Who invented the silly rule that
one can’t wear white after Labor Day? Classics are among the best forms of ricochet.

Last night you were introduced at the bar to the Car Bomb: whiskey on Irish cream
floated into a shot glass, then dropped into a Guinness: foam’s heady ricochet.

Skim and bounce, carom, rebound; mash and bump, kiss and touch, sideswipe and graze.
Climb over the fence with me: what’s left to do but watch the fireflies ricochet?

 

In response to small stone (144).

Eyecup

The blue plastic eyecup
of my mote-ridden boyhood
still sits on the top shelf
behind the bathroom mirror,
at eye-level now.
I remember how good
cool tap water felt
after the hot tears,
tilting my head all
the way back & willing
my eyelid to open,
& afterwards feeling
the scar & the scare recede
from that bit of grit,
but also a lingering sense
of guilt for letting
all the water dribble
to the floor or sink, how
the eye that tried to take in
a small piece of the earth,
as if mere vision were
no longer enough,
had blinked away the offer
of additional tears—
had refused to drink.