While I was writing a love poem,
a pigeon fell head down on the street,
amidst tram tracks,
in between tram stops,
disabled for flight.
A man smelling like himself
for days in a row sat
on the tram bench and scratched
the dried skin on his left shoulder
with his right hand longer nail.
A woman waiting for that tram
checked a list of common human
cognitive biases and memory errors
and counted eighty entries,
never trusting her mind again.
A tourist asked the tram driver
for directions and became upset,
for no one was compelled to speak,
in a foreign country,
his own foreign tongue.
A girl read astrology charts
near the tram entrance to discover
what future will bring her, unaware
of the grander equation all is,
while I was writing a poem.
The tram driver accelerated,
the man reached for the bell,
the tourist fell on the girl,
the woman kept her mouth shut,
and the pigeon didn’t move.
________
photo by Filipe Rocha
