soup

late bloomers
sometimes, there’s really nothing you can say,
like when your son starts asking you the “big questions”
(and he plays the “why?” game until you have to admit
that you don’t have all the answers
or you reach a why? that just doesn’t have a because)
or your girlfriend wants to “talk about it”
(fixing a problem you didn’t know existed)
or when someone at a funeral tells you “they’re in a better place.”

or when it’s your boss’s birthday
and her husband has flowers waiting for her in the lobby
(well, they are from her “dogs,”
since she had explicity stated that he not “make a fuss”).
because an elderly co-worker asks you nicely,
you go to the front and get them.
as you’re walking back through the halls,
the women of the office are letting you know that
“those flowers are so beautiful.”
“oh, what pretty flowers,” they say.
“oh, my, aren’t they something!”
and, seriously, there’s nothing you can say to that.
i could go into it more, but that would defeat the purpose.

dirty talk
we’re breaking up– technically, she’s moving away,
going to school in a state i’ve driven through many times
without seeing anything interesting enough to visit.
she was interesting, so i didn’t get it at all.
i didn’t get a lot of things, like why i wasn’t interested in her.
it can all be traced back, i think, to the time
we tried talking dirty to each other.
you see, her idea of talking dirty was talking about
how much she wanted to talk dirty
and being appalled by my attempts to describe
even the safest, most tasteful of sexual maneuvers
(in my head, we both have our clothes on, even now).
when we get to the airport, it’s not the least bit crowded.
i tell her to call me, but i’m not sure what we’d talk about.
her plane gets delayed, and the goodbyes last a lot longer
than i’d like them to.