Why Not?

Seoul. 16.10.21

Why not, with 5 minutes until I must have left this café, start again, though I have not stopped to reflect on this abundance as I should have. Why?, although the ether remains silent? Why not?, because I scroll through sunsets and valleys and para-glides and notes to lovers, and poems of fingers licked of smokey almonds, and still cannot confront my slowness to response though my heart beats for you, Why not? because then I scroll on another in memoriam, a face I’ve seen, chest hugged, shoulders wrapped round, skin touch skin. And because I’ve never known how to mourn. So why not? If there’s something to this ether, it is a thankfulness for this drink on my lips, pen in my hand, ability to dream, to start again, even if my slowness to confront leaves two months floating in this same ether unwritten and unread and unspoken, but these words have not disappeared for this un-writing, but, remain in the essence of my skin, tomorrow’s touch, tomorrow’s breath, tomorrow’s fear and joy and fearlessness and higher joy, until, I don’t and won’t know when.

And today, the kindest photographer who works in this café during the weekends remembered my name and brought me another coffee, free of charge, though I’d spilt it myself… and for some reason called me kind though this designation was evidently hers.