Postcards

“How are you?” in silky Irish brogue

“Fine” in my rather Unconvincing.

“No really, how are you?”

It would be better if you ask

“Where are you?” or

“Where have you been?”

You mollify me, repeat word for word,

barely disguising annoyance.

Ignoring your tone, I inquire

“Didn’t you get the postcards?”

Me, fiddling with the whole stack

Each one scrawled with rants and recants

Each one with sufficient postage yet no postmark.

First I checked into a Self-Indulgent Inn.

By day, sobbing in lakeside Adirondack chair;

Otherwise, nocturnal scribbling of minutiae,

shallow addlement seeping off the pages,

staining characterless bedcover

in this tedious room.

Next I revisited the canyon breach

that expands the space between

your words & actions, my hands

straining to grasp what you have said

as my feet lose hold on the oily residue

of what you have done.

Then an unexpected side trip to

raunchy, hormone-driven Desire

collecting every word with even the slightest

hint at sex & attaching them all,

making of you a pheromonal kite

airborne on ocean winds with colorful,

uneven tail that trails behind &

sets me chasing.

I had hoped to have a rock hound holiday,

seeking in the rough some diamond facet

that sets this one apart from the

long line of lost loves.

But something got mixed up,

the reservation or the timing.

I’m not really sure what happened

or if I’ll ever make it there.

My intended final destination

(As final as any gets in this life,

so not really final but something like it,

maybe a place to pivot, a chance

to end this journey & start the next):

Ancient stone Buddha in conflicted land,

crumbled Taliban pieces

still able to whisper tenderly in my ear

pain is inevitable; suffering is not.

(cc) Karen G. Johnston