by philip gordon
i’m continually baffled in a mostly passive way
by the way in which ‘normal’ people have conversations.
two guys sitting next to me in starbucks are talking
and guy one (big ears, black leather jacket, blue shirt, scruffy black
facial hair, high-ish voice) has been talking
for like five minutes about basically just irrelevant things
people he knows have done recently and guy
two (white/grey hair, grey/green sweater, playing with his
iphone in a blue case they’re both wearing blue
jeans did i mention that) is smiling and
resting his chin in his hand and occasionally nodding his head.
the first guy has talked about hallways and fm radio advertisements and
sleeping disorder appointments and a girl he knows doing something wrong at
christmas and one of them just
used the word ‘disengaged’ and i think i’ll make that
the title of this poem.