No one is left behind —
not at the laundromat
or the cafe´, not on the shoals
of screen-fed expectations

The song that rises unexpected
from the woman in the car next to ours
while we wait for laundry in the parking lot
shows that there’s room in every life
for grace

No one is left behind,
not even me — I can’t be left
to wander in the wasteland
of looking from the outside
at other people’s lives
at the laundromat, at the cafe´,
along the streets of Springfield
on a Saturday, where other people
have lives that might be less disconnected
than ours. Or maybe not.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 22, 2018