Come or already gone
Hurry is a construct
down the narrow coursing lanes of the merritt parkway we fling ourselves: a river of souls speeding towards the next rectangle chiming reminders. inside my little metal capsule, mom and dad fresh from HPN cling to the ohshit handles as I chatter and point and sail us through waves and waves of dappled sun. hurry is a construct made plain by seasons that come back and back again but are in no rush to die into the next. remember the october surprise that tried to muffle the autumn? yet like a surge it too subsided, a memory cast aside while we pulled on sheets and chaps and wound our way through a crispy maze. matthew, en route from danbury to hamden, says oh no, honey, now online is the only way. men at bars hunch over their watered down vodkas in dim throbbing light and swipe swipe swipe, lonely, bobbing fish in a murky pond. let’s meet up at the zoo on a cloudy day and track our steps while the tiger paces, the wolves fling themselves into the dust and harrumph, alligators turn to stumps. this morning, a bird's call i don't know stops me -- it chivvers through the screen. i slide silent onto the stoop, grinding my teeth as Dad insouciantly crinkles the Craisins bag. Merlin can’t discern what I hear, not over that plastic thunderstorm. i’m left staring at a crowd of blank maple leaves not knowing if a bluebird or a phoebe? has come or already gone
Poem 2 in the series “The Liminal Season.”
Thanks to my friend Bonnie for the prompt “speed”. I don’t live in Connecticut anymore, but it will forever live in me. Especially in the autumn.