October 30, 2018

the veil

I regret not waving the garbage men through before driving north on Claremont.
Hours later, I am asking myself what false hurry I'd convinced myself of
to keep such solid pressure on the gas. "Are we not," as the poet says, 
"of interest to each other?" And here they are, in my mind's rearview mirror, 
standing in the middle of the street with yellow reflectors on their pockets like small suns,
and I'm wondering about their wives' names, and how old their children are, and where
they dream of going on vacation when the weather turns. I am suddenly full of questions -
their favorite team, the childhood hobbies they never abandoned, the meal they still ask
their mothers to make on their birthday every year. When I had the chance, I might have
rolled to a stop, rolled down my window. The veil was as thin as it needed to be. Now what?