Another Chair On Which To Sit

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.

 

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