He had the feeling in his heart but his tongue wouldn’t work
or maybe his tongue worked fine but his thoughts were
jumbled up, and then he thought something to himself
that made hot tears flow down his cheek, and he wanted
to say it, because it seemed urgent, profound, captivating,
implicating and worthy of being said in poignant and
provocative ways, until tears would fall everywhere,
and everyone would stop whatever they were doing,
maybe making a meal, or making a war, or making
a big thing out of a small thing, or anything that people
do to avoid this feeling, this aching gasp in their chest
that wants to become flowing tears, and I do not know
how or why it happens, maybe for some it never does,
but at some point the whole thing dissolves, as if a child
was fixated on a special toy, all he cared for was this toy,
but then one day completely loses interest in it, and just
like that, it gets kicked under the bed and forgotten.
Then, when other people start going on about that toy,
the child looks out the window, watches the leaves
falling, and that’s it — the leaves are falling.