Beans from Scratch

 Waiting for a bean to soften,

remembering when it all started

and the bean man marveled in his new popularity,

once the loneliest man at the marketplace,

suddenly the feeling of the hard dry drops

running through our urban fingers

felt like the woodcutter and his wife

with their provisions, their hearth;

the sight of hard dry beans assured

a speculative fiction survival

and a fantasy continuity

all at once. But what about now?

We're no longer the woodcutter and his wife,

collectively, though personally,

well, I personally am an unspayed housecat

but that aside, can't keep the pantry stocked

these days, anymore, though those days

have yet to truly pass into these, these and those

are endless and yet still the furniture moves,

my driver's license expires, my health insurance lapses,

we got windchimes but the wind blows in new directions,

the beans soaked and yet, and

will I ever stay out all night again,

and the woodcutter and his wife, weeping for their friends long gone.