while the man was swollen with excess fat he was also unloading a truck and while all of this happened the truck idly ran

a fat man
in a
loose shirt
and
shorts,
sweats in the
barely 60 degree
August day.
he’s pulling a ramp
from the back end
of a box truck.
he’s delivering
palleted food to a
coffee shop.

inside, derision
and sadness
and just a bit of
chuckling joy.
inside,
were it
set it to music or
moving picture,
maybe this
might draw a
wider audience.
outside;
the audience.
inside;
whatever is
there,
moving through.
set to music
or to
moving picture.
outside,
audience. and
inside, what
moves through.
perhaps these are
one, and
the same.

the boundaries we set,
yes we like to
speak of
boundaries for our health,
these boundaries
are also how we cut
ourselves away from
the whole.
splintered as we are
and yet we wonder at
our loneliness.

i’ve never been in any
real physical fights,
though i did send a
best friend
to the hospital once.
both of us
drunk, and
the reality of our friendship
being that it was really mostly just
competition.
and after years of
competing and
a few hours of
drinking, and
4 or 5 blows to
a skull, split.
the doctor saying,
“whoever hit you
must have been
wearing rings”.
and we remained
friends for many
more years and
i s’pose maybe
even now we still are,
though
we don’t talk to
each other
any more.
and i wonder why,
ha,
i wonder why.

the bay this morning
was broad like pain.
the bay was gray
like fatigue. the bay
was stretched and featureless
like boredom.
the clouds above,
mimicking. the bay
has no say in the matter,
whether it receives sun’s
mesmerizing glare or
cloud’s silent stare.
and today,
as morning yawned
into afternoon, dimples
on the bay.
pain, boredom,
fatigue, yes.
loneliness,
boundaries
for safety and
for separation,
yes all of
that. violence;

in my head i
slapped an old man
until his face sang red,
after having witnessed him
stiltingly swat at
a piece of sidewalk’d garbage
with his cane,
spit on it once it struck
the street.

yes.
and all of this,
pain, boredom,
violence, safety,
all of this,
dimpled.
no not
a downpour
and no
not even a steady
drizzle. just
a dimpling, a
faintly repeating
impression
of
joy.

the man
has finished
unloading his
box truck.

he slides
the ramp
back into
its under-
truck housing.

adjusts his
body inside
its large
covering, and

hoists himself
back into
the truck.

the truck,
running, the
entire time.