Firmware

There are times when I see
Something odd, like
A purple satin bra on a yellow fire hydrant on a street corner
Or an antique white bassinet on the side of the road
Or No Trespassing sign in the middle of an impassable thicket
And I think

Oh no–
Reality is glitching again.

Someone is going to have to issue
A patch
Or do a hard reset
On the observable universe.

The fragments are getting out of hand.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, though
I would miss all my favorites, preferences, habits, and memories.
It would hurt to lose all that data.
But I admit it would be wild to look in the mirror, see
Status circles swirling where my irises should be
Until the blur clears and reality snaps back into fresh definition
And I turn to look at you and say

We’re all set!
Let’s get started.

At the graveyard at Sandy Spring Meeting House

At one point a friend in the society of friends
Decided the headstones with names, birth and death dates
Were an affront to God, so he removed all of them overnight
And stacked them up behind the meeting house.

After some discussion, they were put back,
But not all ended up in the correct location.
Death solves a lot of problems but apparently
Mistaken identity isn’t necessarily one of them.

Perhaps they all worked it out down there and adjusted
Or just got used to a new identity.
Maybe their earthly identity lost all meaning, and they moved
On, and never noticed the drama.

Mostly likely they’re still laying quietly,
Taking this all in with everything else
And just like their living counterparts
Being quiet together until someone is moved to speak.

Jeremy Lawson was born in Maryland, but has lived in Washington D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, California and New Mexico. He is a big fan of too-long novels, travel writing, and hard-to-classify books. He is working on writing something that doesn’t have much shape yet. Wish him luck.