Water Watching

Oh How Fragile

I am now very conscious of my hips when I sit on the train
Resting adjacent to the person next to me, and slightly pinched by the armrest on the other side,
I'm certain I've gained 1,000 pounds in an instant.

They look sidelong at me,
And I can feel their thoughts:
"How could you let yourself get so fat?"

I am very nervous about my weight when
I mention to my coworker my glee at getting a new chair; the old one never staying high enough,
So that I'd be lower than my desk by day's end.

"It's about time," I said, and she
She told me straight to my face:
"It's about time you lose some weight."

"Just kidding."
Right. Kidding just like those kids were back in elementary and junior high were,
Calling me names.

I know I am fitter than I have ever been,
But hearing that one thoughtless remark made me regress to childhood,
Paranoid the feelings I have are what everyone thinks.

Please turn off my thoughts so I can be who I was before...

mjs (c) 021706

What Does One Do?

What does one do when

Time passes so swiftly

And you’re at the end of another year,

Getting used to a new age,

But you’re still not certain

How you got here,

Or where you’re going?

Are the choices you’ve made

The people you have around,

The right ones for you?

Is the home you have,

The city that’s yours,

The proper one?

And those wishes that go unanswered,

That crush that impossibly lingers,

These debts that go unpaid,

The unfinished projects, or

Rejected pastimes,

Things that shouldn’t be moved aside?

What does one do

With time to make it stretch,

With love to make it grow,

With dreams to see them fulfilled,

Without sacrificing one for the other,

And finally have it all at once?

mjs ©121305

Moment

In the middle of the street,
We embraced.
Warm arms around me,
I was secure, even for a moment.

In the middle of the street,
I spoke.
Warm words to you,
And you gave me that look, just for a moment.

Just for a moment,
The world, frozen in winter,
Warmed.

mjs ©120505

Potomac

The river this time of year, this time of day, is black. Shiny and luminescent, it flows, a black pearl hammered flat and melted into mercury. Its depths are unknown now, the transparent blue green of summer shrouded in mystery.

I marvel at the rippling surface as the train passes on its trestle overhead—is it cool to the touch, or in fact searing liquid metal? Would I pass straight through or bounce back from its surface as from a trampoline?

Light fading, the river recedes still more into unknowable obscurity.

I turn toward home.

mjs 110105

Heartache

The puppy is crying in the next room.

His little heart breaks and aches.

He doesn’t know why his person is angry.

A girl sits alone in her bedroom.

Her heart breaks and aches.

She doesn’t know where her love is.

mjs ©102005