Today will be hot. I walk.
Nothing stands out.
Everything goes into the chopper.
Small pieces can’t be distinguished.
The mind, out of habit, tries to be safe.
Catches. Releases.
Dogs connected to owners.
Eyes looking away.
A man hunched forward, smelling of cigarettes.
To be silent, to walk, to forget.
That is the best way.
I was a child.
My father.
No.
Chop up those pieces.
Cut fruit into pies. Make jam.
Walk.
We do what the moment commands.
In the morning, I get up.
I walk.
Small Pieces
Hilda Weiss has poetry published in Spillway, Panoply, Cultural Weekly, The Comstock Review, Salamander, Schuylkill Journal, and Rattle, among others. She also has a chapbook, Optimism About Trees (Finishing Line Press, 2011) and has poems in anthologies such as Wide Awake and Coiled Serpent. She is co-founder and curator for www.Poetry.LA, a website featuring videos of poets and poetry venues in Southern California. A fourth generation Californian, she lives, writes, and grows her own vegetables in a garden full of native California plants in Santa Monica.