Tragedy


She took the local out of Grand Central,
A little recreational jaunt but ran
Into her buddy Nothingness (also headed
To Darien) who gassed on forever
About the latest Tom Hanks movie
(Or maybe “vehicle” was the proper noun).

Droopy-eyed Boredom set in as she
Tried to arrange her mouth in an attitude
Of attention when what she craved was
Looking-out-the-window Mildness,
The Vacancy of images passing by,
Sight unraveling like a spool of acetate.

Soon—in the form of a conductor or boisterous
Passenger—Comedy would appear.
Life was like that, always making things
Out to be better than they were,
Pretending that the gestures of Lassitude
Possessed an unfathomed genius.

When the moment came to leave she didn’t.
History had left a text message on her phone,
Something about tall buildings.
She smiled furtively, stoically, mysteriously.
She had enough adverbs for an eternity
Of bad writing. The docile yet anxious

Human cast around her sniffed and pecked,
Burped and sighed. She should have brought
One of those five hundred page novels with her,
The Russian kind where you can bury yourself
In the annals of vociferous Blindness. Next time.
She popped a mint, settled in for the ride.