if the world is so damn small
there’s a half-moon over the hill
the evening sun is setting
in the trees across the road
someone left a wire coat hanger
under this wooden bench
my understanding of these things
is incomplete
I’ve never learned the names of trees
so I can’t take the easy way out
can’t fill the page with magical incantations
like the old doctor in Pine Hollow
I don’t know an ash from a hole in the ground
so I call everything with leaves an oak
a safe bet in Alabama
I once sat down across a table in Tokyo
from a woman who was born
in the very same hospital as I was
just a few weeks afterward
amazing
now it seems natural to eat lunch
with someone who turns out to have
all the same friends and to know
all the same restaurants
a thousand miles from the town
we have in common
if the world is so damn small
how did I wear out two pairs of sandals
just going down the East Coast?
and where was I three weeks ago?
22 October 2012
Auburn, Alabama
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