Watertown

The firefighter was dead

and the city was sad. Two

firefighters were dead. I

watched some of the mass

on the TV at Jiffy Lube.

Then someone asking

about the missing plane:

how can we give up hope

if we haven’t seen anything

yet? Hail and tornadoes

hit the heartland. The guy

with tattooed inner arms

comes to show me my

trashed filter and smiles

so gently. I was also at

a Jiffy Lube on 9-11

where there was

no TV but a baffled

hoarse newscaster on

the radio and blonde

college girls fumbling

with their phones.

In the diner two Russian

girls in black drank mimosas

on a Wednesday morning.

My dad thought maybe

they were prostitutes or

maybe I thought that.

Neither of us said it out

loud, and if I did think

it, it wasn’t until I saw

them leaving and walking

down the sidewalk arm

in arm, weaving a little

in the sunshine, past

the Masonic temple.