BARBARA JOAN SCHAFFER-OBJECTS IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

OBJECTS IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

Objects in the rear view mirror may be closer than they appear
From the road already traveled I can still be hit,
or, perhaps, smash into someone from the past.

I constantly adjust my side view mirrors
and then forget to look -
as we weave along the interstate
keeping our distance
closer than we appear.

GEOGRAPHY LESSON

They call it the doldrums, but what does she know about horse latitudes. She’s waiting for the wind, a good wind to blow her in the right direction. If she consults the priests they might tell her to sacrifice something, someone. It’s called getting control of your life, but she knows no one controls the wind.

PLAY TIME

It’s always interesting to see how things play out. How people play out their lives, as if they were musical scores – the notes are familiar, the same even, but it’s all in the interpretation, the riffs, the codas, the bow work or the fingering.

MEN IN WHITE COATS

Incapable even of forming a thought, I stood numb in the shower tuned to the static, when out of nowhere appeared the scientists or lab technicians, white gowned employees of the demiurge, who happened to be making their erratic rounds. They noticed I was wilting and transfused me with a controlled substance – like Miracle-Gro or cocaine. I felt my spirit lift and shrewdly asked for more.

It was, of course, just the brain doing its job. Yet it seemed a portent, as if I had a destiny for which I was being kept alive.

Barbara Joan Schaffer lives in Puerto Escondido. She is the author of Objects in the Rear View Mirror (Palo Alto: Tabor Sarah Books) ISBN 0-935079-20-3. You can contact Barbara at barscha@speakeasy.net