contiguous

the boy with the red sneakers says

you have to touch the pole before you can cross the line,

it has always been this way,

everybody knows that.

and the girl in the yellow jacket says

that’s not how we played it yesterday,

that’s not how it works,

its never been that way,

and everybody knows that too

I’m watching from a bench

eating a sandwich I didn’t want

thinking about the conference call at noon

where Henderson said that’s not what the data shows

and Stevens said that’s exactly what the data shows

same spreadsheet, people,

same seventeen columns

of the same indifferent numbers

the boy and the girl are nose to nose now

the pole equidistant between them,

neither touching it…

there was a night,

sometime over a long weekend,

when she told me she wasn’t going to do this again

and I said do what again?

when she said you never really listen and

I said I am literally listening right now

and we were both correct

and that is the saddest thing I know how to say about us —

two people straining toward the same ordinary life

from opposite banks

of the same ordinary river

with no place to cross…

the kids have moved on,

found a third thing to argue about,

the original dispute already ancient history

I finish my sandwich,

check the time,

wonder what Henderson and Stevens look like from far enough away —

whether you could even tell them apart,

whether the pole even matters,

whether she and I were ever really arguing about listening

or were we just standing on either side of a line

neither of us drew but

absolutely certain

we were each on the right side

dismissing the easy answers

with more assertions.