I Didn’t Predict Any of This

I predicted I’d be depressed over the holiday weekend.
But surprises undo omens.

Dad, you were brilliant. And the whiskey you served was tasty.
And it was perfect, the DC bureau chief and me
editing the suburbs in a coffee shop next to Safeway.

I was happy spending money too, on a pro basketball ticket,
knowing the Metro is a manifesto,
and the escalator leading into mixed use footsteps,
is a mystery train.

My exurban niece, cozy in her teenage constellation,
including one boy among the young stars, whose purple non-binary fingernails
were philosophically draped over her shoulders.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all: A nighttime text from a woman who,
I kid you not, bears a hilarious resemblance to  –––– .
Hush!

And dad, I seriously love this legit art film.
This counterculture time capsule starring pretty hippie kids
converging on San Francisco with standing ovations
for Ravi Shankar. For God’s sake.

Luck comes to me:
I didn’t expect we’d be loving a movie together again.
This late. You 87, going on 88.

It’s true, good luck comes to those who plan. But surprises come to those
who run it back—win by two, threes are twos, call your own foul, ball in.

I’m never 100 percent happy, because I know there’s always a doctor’s appointment
with the blood work chart looming.

The violent LabCorp techs say,
“Is A Girl Named Bill Russell still your emergency contact?”
And then, “We have to do it over! Let’s get it over with!
He’s got a big vein over there!”

I didn’t realize: There was a job available
writing about transit-oriented development.

I didn’t see this coming either: This cool woman from Tinder named Teach, the DJ, Teach, the DJ broke it off, with an Expressionist exit, jade earrings, Bela Bartok, morphine photography.

And I didn’t think: My old friend Wendy’s Stealing Clothes would actually be part of our great neighborhood coup. But she was.
Smart AF, her Judah-the-Maccabee as-fuck sweater was an amicus brief.

I can’t believe it: Even with my mentally ill left arm smarting,
my lab chart was all good.

And I’m still swooning over the verisimilitude of the groovy art movie,
this late with us.

As it turns out: We can chart the immeasurable.

—December, 2017

Published by Halycone Literary Review, June, 2020 and in my first collection, Shops Close Too Early (Cathexis Northwest Press, 2022).