Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Photo by Aayush Srivastava from Pexels

Sign

Translated by Anna Bentley

there was none

as usual we were

crawling along in a traffic jam,

leaning on our horns and swearing,

in a hurry just then to get somewhere,

running late, scrambling to

cook dinner on Saturday

while thinking about Sunday lunch

we were drinking Cokes,

beer, wine and Cuban rum,

and sending a text message

we were ’chatting’ and

posting photos on Facebook

’liking’ other people’s photos

planning our summer holidays

planning our great futures

humming and hawing, hoodwinking

ourselves and others

our shoes were tight, our bunions hurt

we sent back the pizza for not being round

for not having enough oregano

there was too much ketchup on the top

we were cold

we were hot

not finding a place to park, we parked illegally

and the police fined us

the police didn’t do anything,

pure energy, we pedalled the spinning bike

desperately maintaining the pace

lest the world pass us by

there was no sign

or we were always looking the wrong way

and didn’t see it

March 23 2020