I watch her pray, and I wonder.
It’s vacant, she tells me.
It’s like a vacuum cleaner has come by and sucked up everything.
My days are like a damp washboard.
I brush away the leaves, and I tell her,
Do something different.. Sleeping makes the spine more curvy.
What I really mean is “crooked”.
She sits up straighter. I could become a carpenter:
Make another chair to sit on.
Take a course, I suggested.
She calls the high school: the Department of Adult Studies.
But there is no answer.
Look at me, she tells me.
Can’t you see?
Life is an empty space between two nothings.
It’s a sky with no stars.
Where the moon has wandered off out of boredom.
I look at her.
I really want to make a joke, or say something meaningful:
Like, it’s a big parenthesis, and needs to be filled with contentment.
But there is something in her appearance.
And I have to agree with her.
If I don’t, she’ll get angry.