Current Transmissions:

20130729

> Frank in Plureality

We, each in our own way, 
approve of the sentimentality of tears 
though  we cannot find enough moments to pin them, 
delicately, to. 
In the thunder there is always anticipation, 
maybe something of the lyrical 
in our steps as we cross the road; 
always that thrill rippling distant across our numbness 
at the act, 
although every film seeking to document our mood has shown the very same scene 
and the cars never fail to slow. 
The first drops fall 
and perhaps you wish, pace quickening, 
you were running, laughing, the rain already a storm, for shelter under an awning 
he or she running beside you, 
two others you don’t know but who you share a smile with 
as your hand moves, suddenly slow, significant, 
through you wet hair. 
 
We think we may have discovered the refrain 
over coffee and cigarettes. 
Maybe the rain is a part of it. 
Later one of us will be reading, another dreaming in bed, 
another will be crying, and though you may see it, days later, 
behind their smile, you’ll never know why. 
And we’ll try and remember what it was, 
the way the storyteller paused to light her cigarette, 
the way he was resting his head in his hand, 
the way our cups were filled without asking, the song on the raido. 
Or did the others even feel it? Was it when 
your thoughts returned to the awning – 
It is in front of a gas station, on a highway. 
You had stopped to buy snacks, and to flip a coin 
over whether or not to buy a map 
when the rain started. 
 
There will be a collection  
of notes, 
a particular arrangement, though you may return to it 
for slight changes as suits your fancy, 
with the correct voice 
to speak of you. 
 
It is the way the smoke  
from your cigarette changes 
that tells you before they step from the hall. 
Everything else changes in the moment they do; 
everything else had been arranged for you to be alone, 
the window open but behind you, 
the record on but finished playing, 
the five butts in the ashtray, chain-smoked, 
all to make of you and the space and silence about you 
a moment worthwhile. 
That changes even as it is observed, and the words 
it would take to make of their arrival a moment 
are so much simpler 
only so much heavier 
than any that will be spoken tonight. 
It is not that either of your smiles are forced, 
they are just too familiar and no longer reliable.

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