Tempered then laminated to prevent cutting edges

Photo by Artyom Kulakov from Pexels

 

Tempered then laminated to prevent cutting edges

ASSHOLE.  WHY DON’T YOU STEP OUT?

I had been walking off work

Now I’m assessing anger ahead

It is 4:45pm, and the sun has already set

I can’t tell the driver’s gender or ethnicity

I can tell the car’s color and make

Gleaming Blue Honda

YOU’RE PARKED ON THE SIDEWALK, ASSHOLE

Gray whiskers add to bristle he’s emitting

With black stocking cap/canvas jacket/work pants bellow

When he stalks around the car, I see the silver laptop

secure in front pocket of his black backpack

Hospital IT hiking to commuter lot, I guess

I’M TRYING TO WALK HERE

I slow so his indignation can carry him away

The driver turns left into a traffic break

The bellicose turns right churning uphill

I veer through parking lot the car exited

Defensive maneuver to avoid colliding

we’ve worsened from Impatient to Vitriolic

from the Latin vitriolum meaning Small Glass

the way windshields are designed to shatter

I’d like to social engineer the emotional equivalent

Safety features breaking raging into harmless pebbles

Everybody surviving collision

slightly bruised     exchanging information

Ode to 42 Spanish Street

photo by Jessie Preza

 

I want to travel to St. Augustine to sit in the courtyard of 42 Spanish Street.  I want to revel in the rescue of this two-hundred-year-old Colonial, restored by Hollingsworth with the help of his partner Zachary and that of his father Buzz (a fire hydrant of a man).  I want to sit in the chairs Worth and Zach picked out, enjoy the tang of the lemon tree they planted, listen to the cheerful burble of the fountain they resurrected, and register the rumble of the Florida masses they distress on the other side of the wall that divides us.  

(Inspired by "In with the Old," Season 3, Episode 6, 42 Spanish Street)