All Things Present

All Things Present

by Mitchell Bradford

Weekend Brunch; Tom’s Restaurant; Brooklyn, New York –

an omelet and coffee

another omelet, another coffee.

We talk regret.

How I was never interested

in money or this government.

They left their brother alone on a bus

once. The past being back there somewhere

but here we are now

walking through the park

before it rains

and I remember every spot

I’ve ever been –

there was my birthday picnic

and over there I cried at midnight

and…well yeah I miss them.

Too long and the city becomes

a graveyard of your past

selves. I think

of water and of my hands,

both existing without me.

On the train home a couple

speaks without actually speaking.

Meaning without language

or the swell of time in silence

where every feeling is

present in the body,

where between each pulse

I shudder with the archive of myself.

Then, back home my lost history