Here's this week's Divorced Dad Poem:
A Divorced Dad Rides the Subway
Outside. It’s always a dangerous gambit.
He’s prepared. Subway pass secured and tapping his wallet.
Each step down into the station becomes choreographed
falling.
On the bottom step, a rat, previously hidden,
With its lower half pulped and savagely bleeding,
In defiance of his fatal condition,
Lunges past him towards the open air.
What do you do when you encounter your familiar?
And what happens once that kindred spirit has left you,
Most likely to fight and spit and bleed itself out for a few
Hours at most, until his tiny, determined eyes grow ossified
And the struggle ends?
He’s marinating on this worry, hands shaking as he slides
the pass,
Pushes his hip between the turnstile,
And steps down onto the platform.
Thought chewing pensive upon pensive thought,
When out of the random circumstance,
A spritely
mohawked woman in a jean jacket
Exits a newly arrived subway car,
Spies him, holds up her tattooed hand and exclaims:
High Five!
He turns, and with equal passion, slaps her hand.
He’s back in the connected, loving world.
Sidles into an open seat.
And covets that small, tender mercy of being seen.
Being known.
Hand to hand.
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