Wish You Were Here

by eatonhamilton

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blind contour sketch: Jane Eaton Hamilton 2015

Wish You Were Here

Or I don’t. I can’t decide. Do I wish you were here, or am I glad that you aren’t here, or do I feel too little of anything, and if I do, does it matter since, really, it’s inescapable, we will all be dead in a few decades at most, and then, whether or not I wanted you here will really be moot. I miss you or perhaps I don’t miss you, and when I walk down into the metro and see fervently heterosexual lovers kissing, I think of you, or perhaps I don’t think of you and instead am thinking about a new camera I want. A young man shuffles cards. A homeless man sits with a slice of white bread hanging from his mouth. When I get off at my stop, a yellow lemon rolls down a gutter in front of red fruit-stand flaps. This makes me ache for something, and possibly what I ache for is you, but it might be lemonade.

-first appeared in Contemporary Verse II, in altered version