twisting in the crosswalk downtown, not in the mythical middle but almost before reaching that other shore, i notice an older man who is not quite old enough to be old, who has not arrived at the other side and something i did not catch and that maybe no one else caught has arrested him there, wearing a not quite white tshirt the color of recycled paper or skin, emblazoned with a conspicuous crimson question mark on his chest, offering a bulls eye to the universe, which provokes me to wonder if he's offering his heart as a landing pad for all the unanswered questions that linger in the air here like second hand smoke, or am i misreading a sign that's trying to advertise his soul's confusion, that he doesn't know and he really doesn't, and what motivates a man to put on a tshirt with a big question mark on a spring morning that is much too cool for such optimism? i have arrived to put my mind down and i am served tea this early april by a beautiful young woman who's name, coincidentally, is april. can a month be a coincidence? can a beautiful young woman? i was picked up along the way by an old bookstore friend from another state who spotted me waiting at the bus stop. and though we are both gray & bald & middle-aged, we are younger than that guy twisting in the crosswalk on burnside, and i think, that could be us, clutching our white trash bags of recycled cans, the unanswered questions in our hearts wearing us in public...
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