blood letter #1
(BACKSTORY: one morning in early 2009, as I made my near-daily pilgrimage to the coffee shop, I found myself really really wanting to hear Neil Young’s “New Mama”; but I didn’t have the CD in my car, so I called in to my beloved local college radio station to request it. it was a good 20 minutes or so before the DJ got around to playing it, by which time I had almost arrived at my destination. when I got there, I left the keys in the ignition and the radio on so that I could enjoy the music as I gathered my pile of books ‘n’ things. then I forgot to take the keys out when I left. when I came out several hours later, the battery was dead.
I got a jump start and a new battery, but my car was never the same. more specifically: the stereo’s ‘anti-theft’ feature had been tripped, and I could no longer listen to music until I entered the passcode, which I did not know and could not find anywhere. in the months to come, I spent a lot of time singing at the top of my lungs while driving between durham and chapel hill; when that got boring, I made up poems in my head, which I started posting to this tumblr as a convenient way to have a personal record of them. this is the first one.)
* * * *
when the woman at the drive-thru hands you your change
at 11:30 AM
saying “thank you,
have a nice evening”
you are old enough to know
no explanation is forthcoming.
the sudden appearance of a new gas station
beside a once-familiar road,
or a favorite TV show in a new time slot;
not so much an outcome as a process.
all the same,
hold it to your nose and breathe deep,
like a dog diagnosing illness.
all the same, try
to have a nice evening.
