Why I Am Not a Physicist (Erie)

Crows cough humidly in summer heat

Calendars screech toward me, my Doppler wails. Decibels echo unseen on the spectrum shift. My anticipation of a Beefsteak suddenly ripens on its August vine. Blackberries tart on briers in oven sun. Desire departs before I can get a kiss. My future accelerates, a locomotive derailment of blue birthdays, indigo appointments, violet surprises.

According to Kierkegaard, life can only be understood by looking backwards, but we live it, eyes open or not, going forward, immediately noisy with ascending pitch, often without warning. Horses approach from the direction of the outdoor movie screen. Unwed teens conceived a generation last night as the cavalry chased Apaches.

Almost August. Given enough rainfall we’ll bale two cuttings of hay before we show hogs at the fair. Last August rusts in the past. Memories slow distantly, recede in time’s redness, the sweet redness of wild strawberries two boys pluck from fields behind the brick projects in Erie. Crows cough humidly in summer heat. The pair, sated by the wild fruit, migrate east; the crows, the boys. Orange clusters on the mountain ash beckon young climbers. They’re drawn by a procession of saplings that grace the entry to Mercyhurst College. Caught in the trees by the Irish nuns, the Sisters of Mercy attack with broom-handles to defend their landscape. One intruder is Jewish, the other, Catholic. They retreat together, then grow apart. Later the half-life of memory softens, covered in a foam of…

“Did that really happen?”