Elizabeth Romero: Can’t You Feel It?

After supper tonight I watched a movie about a maid

in the ‘Twenties who was hanged

because she killed the man who raped her.

Then I went down to the garden to clean the birdbath

and water the standing pots;

I sat on a bench and listened to the sounds of the night:

Voice, machines, the wind and cicadas,

I felt the future coming;

We are hurtling toward death I thought and then,

I love it; it is so sweet after a hot day, the breeze.

Then Buzzy came out. He talked about the Red Sox.

I wanted to say

Buzzy, we are hurtling toward death, can’t you feel it?

We should run down the garden path screaming

Not chat in the quiet about ties and home runs.

But I didn’t; I listened, and went upstairs to bed.

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Romero