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Bob Lucky

In the Scheme of Things

We’re in Portugal at the time. I’m drinking too much vinho verde and dreaming of a farm awash in olive oil and goat cheese. My wife, afflicted with asymptomatic giardia, is quickly losing interest in goats and me, is losing weight.

On a bus ride to Coimbra, we try to figure out where home is. She wants to have a baby, but not in Portugal. I want grilled chicken for lunch. This is how we kill time.

in a phone booth –
grandma has been dead
two weeks

Nineteen years later our son makes a rebound in a high school basketball game in China. I’m sipping green tea from a plastic water bottle. My wife calls my mother in the US on her cell phone to tell her that we’ve won. I feel a tear run down my cheek and realize I’m crying just a little for a lot of reasons.

autumn mist
a street cleaner strips
leaves off a sapling