Empty Nest
What’s the term for when a dad’s home alone,
sitting in the corner of his living room left holding
his feelings and fate, cradled in his arms like a fresh
bouquet of carnations and consolations? And what’s
it called when you have too much time to stop
and smell the newly bloomed juxtaposes? There
is nothing new under the pun or words to define
when a man becomes a syndrome—but most
folks don’t know the Burrowing Owl has evolved
to dwell comfortably in abandoned dens to escape
the heat, and the barista and customer each ask
how their days are, both responding not the best
or worst because it turns out, both still live with
their exes, going to show getting out of the
kitchen isn’t solely a matter of temperature, but
temperament. Birds learn from each other and
mimic the most successful ways to build and
humans copy one another by replicating the
most effective ways to fall apart, but what of
the father rocking back and forth in his favorite
recliner, flapping his arms as if hoping to take
off and fly backwards into second chances and
flew-by seasons.
Pamplona
I paid the Piper in pocket change and pimento loaf. One form of currency for my debt
and the other to satisfy a distinct hunger I’m certain he doesn’t know he longs for. An
assortment of meats and other ingredients is an acquired taste and I have yet to leap off
the cliffs of Acapulco into the Pacific, but I might love it and be a natural for all I know.
We rarely stop to consider combinations that don’t seem to complement each other like
devil and eggs, like snails and facials, like top-tier vacation packages and running from
bulls. And in in that way, we never give ourselves the opportunity to experience our
utmost exfoliation or the rush of fleeing from beasts we never imagined we’d be able
to outrun. The Piper will thank me for being a stand-up guy as he needs those quarters
for the lone pay phone when he’s lost along a stretch of remote highway and for eating
such a misunderstood food. And I’ll thank him when I strip off all my clothes, squeeze
into a speedo, and soar from a Mexican precipice wondering where this glorious wind
has been all my life and crash down into an ocean that welcomes me as if I’d just broken
the plane between day and dream.
Small Talk
I’d rather spend my time alone, planning how to weave
my apathy into the abandoned poem about researchers’
recent discovery of carnivorous squirrels than answering
strangers’ questions about weather—easy filler for those
who know how to invade spaces but not how to defend
the significance of silence or the importance of analyzing
rodents overstuffing their cheeks with their kin’s guts vs.
nuts. I overheard a women tell her friend if her hairstyle
had a name it’d be called Depression and was reminded
getting by in life is often a case of survival of the wittiest.
“Those who can’t” overcompensate, but “those who can”
are quiet and never caught empty-handed because they
hold their tongues, able to recognize gravity is greater
than gratuity. I left off on the stanza where I pondered
the compartmentalization of my feelings and when the
guy in front of me turned around to mention something
about cold fronts before paying for his produce, I
screamed, You’re NOT a meteorologist!, shocked at my
insistence. But maybe that was the breakthrough I needed,
a bridge from introversion to introspection, a path from
gatherer to hunter, a nimbus cloud giving myself permission
to finally let it all out.
Daniel Romo is the author of Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets (FlowerSong Press 2023), Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach 2021), Apologies in Reverse (FutureCycle Press 2019), and other books. He received an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, and he lives, teaches, and rides his bikes in Long Beach, CA. More at danieljromo.com.
