SAME

By: Jason Gabbert

It makes me sad, what you’ve become.

You stained thick the outside of your irises.

You bent over broken feathers on the side of the street.

That’s the first time I stop seeing you.

A boy playing in gutter rapids near 15th and Brazee:

He makes the handheld space pod fly.

I seem more concerned than his mother:

On her phone. He’s back inside now.

Someone said they didn’t have many friends.

We read an article about life rife with loneliness, like smoking fifteen cigarettes.

There are hundreds of us sitting and drinking from identical cups,

In the same space at distinct tables.

I received a phone call from Roseburg.

When they said they wanted something, I hung up.

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Jason Gabbert participates with words (those things that stir and explore the vast range of what it is to “be”) with simple sentences.