How are you doing?

Fine, I say, fine.
I slept well.
Dreamed nothing.
Woke up on my own.
Looked into the mirror.
Saw nothing unusual.
Remembered one or two people.
One or two I didn’t remember.
Wiped the crumbs off the table.
Found a raisin.
Opened a window.
Felt happy once.
Unhappy two times.
Didn’t feel anything three times.
Thought about meaning of life once.
About meaninglessness two times.
Thought about nothing three times.
Coughed.
Nothing hurt.
Nothing was lacking.
No one worried about me.
Watched the news.
They cut the tape.
Gave an interview.
Bombed.
Two children and a car drowned
(separately).
They talked about the car longer
than about children.
Glanced into the yard.
Glanced into my wallet.
Looked into the past.
Laid out my losses.
Rejoiced in my discoveries.
Surveyed events.
Contemplated the object.
Discovered connections.
Explained the reasons.
Honored the dead with a minute of silence.
Sighed because of my lover.
Thought about my mother.
Changed my clothes.
Fine, I say, fine.

 

Just like spring.
There’s more kids in the yard,
Sand heats up
In the cups of dirty little palms.
The river swells
And subsides.
There’s fish in there,
Which you didn’t catch.
The hell with it,
I’ll stand here awhile
With a caraway seed between my teeth.
While a little bench on my right,
Where three old women
Like crumbly cookies
Fall apart from the southeast
Wind