Wireless Connections
She is
content to be
where she is
between earth and sky
sipping coffee at a black table
in a white-walled cafe
reading a book
but not quite in the pages her eyes wander to where
people are plugged in
to free Wi-Fi on laptops—
their eyes roam, scan the room
focused and unfocused.
She believes there is
no presence of time
in her absent life—
hours, minutes, seconds are
insignificant
there is neither before, nor
an after,
to now she is indifferent
she smiles at the woman seated
at the next table
the one with headphones—
she too is absent from the present
she too is here but not here
the smile that passes between them
a single, cordless connection.
© Neetu Malik
Some of Neetu’s Books
-
crow flies overhead
I hear pandemonium -
last night’s hurricane blew the roof off
pieces of felt lay on the street like bits of rubber tires -
She needs to dig deep
to pull the roots
that grow under her feet
to do so requires strength -
my room
a sanctuary
at the end of the day -
It must have been
a stormy night
when love flew out the window
of my vacant roomlike a feather
from a molting bird.
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Investigative reporter Gemma Wade has been dispatched to her own personal purgatory—small town Marietta, Montana—to write a fluffy, romantic piece about the unprecedented spike in marriages there.
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