What If
What if
life happens in line at the supermarket—
when your cart nudges someone else’s
and you both say “sorry”
at the exact same time
and laugh like you’ve shared
a secret.
Or in the post office,
when the clerk with tired eyes
notices Happy Birthday written on the box
and asks, “How old?”
and you tell her eight,
and she smiles in a way
that suggests she remembers
eight.
We’re so busy trying
to streamline our days—
tap, swipe,
summon dinner to the door.
But what if life is…
the old man counting coins
so slowly,
and the woman behind him in line
who says, “Take your time,”
and really means it.
Or the barista who remembers your name
without checking a screen.
Or the toddler who waves from a shopping cart
like you are the most important person
she’s seen all day.
What if it’s eye contact without a filter—
the waiting,
the small talk,
the friction of being human
in the same room
at the same time.
We’re so eager to eliminate
the errands,
the lines,
the delays.
But these are the places
where neighborhood exists.
Where breathing, blinking, imperfect miracles
stand just three feet away.
Life is in the pause
between strangers
who decide, even briefly,
to see each other.
These are moments
I’m not willing to DoorDash away.
Because no algorithm
will ever hold the door for me
in the rain.
—Lu Ann Schnable Kaldor
Tuesday Is a Busy Day
On Tuesdays, I go to court,
and every Tuesday
I wait for the Judge to call me
and to ask me
how did it go this week?
by how did it go
he means where have I been?
because on certain days
I’m not supposed to go
to certain places
during shopping hours,
if I do, I may go to jail,
and I’ve done enough time,
I already have two brothers in the County,
and Officer Bailey says
there’s nothing for me to worry about
because the two of them are doing good,
and the secretary gives me a map
with all the streets
that I’m supposed to skip,
just to make sure, she says,
and I carry the map in my pocket
cause I know he’s going to ask me
for it next week,
sometimes I go home after court,
only sometimes,
when I know mom’s guy is not there
and mom asks me
how have things been?
and I tell her things have been fine,
by things she means court,
and she tells me that’s good,
just continue doing as the judge says,
and life for me will be ok,
also on Tuesdays I see my therapist
who asks me the same question
and signs the court paper
and gives me the same recommendation
and I do, I just walk the streets
no one cares about,
like Howard, like Damen,
not Davis, or Church, or Clark,
now not even Dempster and Chicago
because they’re building new lofts
and opening new stores,
I can’t go there day or night,
I can’t show my face at parades
or summer celebrations,
if I do, I may be looking for trouble,
the Judge says,
and he, and my mother, and my therapist
want me to be a free man.
—Ricardo Enrique Murillo
The Whole World Oughta Go on a Vacation
The stars are hummin’ low tonight, a dusty, silvery choir, while down below, the neon glows like some electric fire. But I’m just parked on this old rail, a silhouette on wood… Watchin’ all the frantic folks not actin’ like they should.
Hey, wake up, all you space cowboys, driftin’ through the black, leave the engines idle and the stars upon the track. The world’s a-engine revvin’ high, a gear that’s stripped and worn, tired of the push and pull since the day that it was born.
It oughta take a holiday, a long and quiet breeze, and let the satellites jus’ spin above the dissonance and grounded sleaze. I’m sittin’ on this crooked fence, let the madness roll on by, one partially tied timberland boot in the lazy grass and one lazy eye on the sky.
No use in chasin’ gravity or runnin’ ‘til you’re blind, there are better things than urgency for a restless soul to find. So, tip your hat to silence, folks, and let the planet spin, I’ll be right here ridin’ on this fence of mine until the rest of us clock in.
—ooznozz
Ballet and Broomsticks
Please don’t give a ballet dancer a push broom
They really don’t know what to do with it.
Sure, they’ll push it around for a little, kick up some dust.
But will quickly lose interest, start twirling around with it.
And the floor will never be cleaned.
Don’t give them a folding table or a folding chair.
Sooner or later, well, sooner really,
They will fling them around
Trying to slide across the floor on them,
Or take that tired pose straddling the chair
Like riding a creepy hobby horse.
Don’t give those dancers a tray with anything on it
Don’t give them liquid
Don’t give them towels
Or guns
Or knives
Or any sharp implement
Just don’t hand them anything,
Except for maybe an oversized foam finger
Or a Wisconsin cheese hat
They don’t know what to do with them
And they are relatively harmless.
—Marc Janssen
Betrayed by Snow
I glance down at the speedometer and think
This will be the one time I do the speed limit
when I cross the bridge.
Then the car swerves slightly right, then left,
then back right in a wider arc, then left in an even
wider arc until it sails fast into the median with a crunch.
As this is happening, I know I can do nothing
to stop or even slow it—the car, I mean—
but time slows.
Time slows way down.
I have the same thought I did when that woman
T-boned me on Corbin in LA: This is going to suck
—Lori White
Evening, New Paltz
People from the village
have gathered at the edge of town
to watch the sun go down.
They sit
mostly in groups of two
or three facing west
where the light through scattered clouds
is best.
By the paved trail
across the narrow river
a couple waits on the ground,
each with an arm around the other.
It is the end of day and soon
they will rise and leave for home,
though a woman alone
may linger
watching the changing light,
colors darken to shades near black.
Behind the woman’s back
lights in the village come on.
—Matthew J. Spireng
Cut Soup
How do you cut soup?
fork and knife
fat beading on blade.
Nothing makes sense.
Push and pull floating food around—
this side to that.
Put depth in a plate and
call it a bowl—
chase it all around with a spoon.
Some people say
“Soup is not a meal.”
I disagree.
Wait for it to cool down.
hold it to your lips without quiver.
Go back for seconds.
—Emma Lee
The Season Before the Storm
Something in the soil feels wrong.
Not dead—
not yet—
but tired.
Like the earth itself
has stopped believing
anything worth growing
will bother to push through.
The ground used to hum
with reckless possibility—
roots dreaming downward,
green things rehearsing their miracles.
Now it holds its breath.
The foundations we trusted
tilt a little each morning,
like old houses settling
on bones no one remembers burying.
Every headline
sounds like a door
quietly locking.
Every conversation
circles the same hollow center—
a polite choreography
around the word fear.
Not the screaming kind.
Not the furious kind
that breaks windows
and drags the truth into daylight.
Just the slow kind.
The kind that sits at the table
with its coat still on.
The kind that makes people smaller
without them noticing.
There is sadness everywhere.
In the way voices soften
when they talk about tomorrow.
In the way hope now sounds
like a rumor.
What unsettles me most
is the missing anger.
Where is the pure
unadulterated rage?
Because anger
at least
is alive.
Anger is heat.
Movement.
A match struck in the dark.
But this—
this quiet grief
wrapped in caution
wrapped in fatigue—
feels like a field
after the frost
when the seeds are still there
but no one believes
in spring.
—Regina Bergen
For Liam Ramos and the Other Innocents
(A Villanelle)
A home is meant to be a sacred place.
In spite of that, they stole you far away.
Your absence, now a pitiful disgrace.
A cold, unknown, unclean detention space—
We let them do it, gave them power and sway.
A home is meant to be a sacred place.
A panicked fear would flail and then debase
Your gentle self, that sweet soul we betray.
Such absence, now a pitiful disgrace.
And can your family be the same? By grace—
Hugs, looks exchanged, the very way you play?
A home is meant to be a sacred place.
Still other kids are gone with little trace.
With each, we cast our dignity astray.
Their absence, now a national disgrace.
Here stands communal sin we have to face—
Our willful ignorance on full display.
A home is meant to be a sacred place.
All absence, now a pitiful disgrace.
—Megan Bean
This article appears in April 2026.
