Transit

In Italian, Umarell refers to retired men who watch construction sites, hands behind their backs, often offering unsolicited advice as if wading in the Sea of Something to Do because boys will be buoyant.

I’m moving from California to New York in the summer or to New York from California because how we phrase and frame ourselves is a matter of focusing on        what we leave behind vs. what’s ahead, so we’re either nervous about leaving or anxious about going— God, it’d be so much easier if we were made to share our experiences without having to go through them.

Error in Italian is errore and how many times have we made things worse because we felt compelled to add on to what was already                              a mistake?

The barista informs his coworker     we remember what’s not worth remembering     and forget what we should be recalling, and I read each memory is continuously filtered from the original but smells remain the most accurate and since those are connected to taste, tears remain our most flavored recollections.

I imagine driving the moving truck, inhaling the Pacific’s breeze as I trek across the country,          my hands at 10 and 2          because switching to 9 and 3 means letting go of what we’ve learned. And I squeeze the wheel tighter as I pass a wrecking ball crashing through a motel as if inspecting the destruction                I’ve left behind.