Poem

Onlies
for Joe

I sat in my car this afternoon, eating
popcorn with gasoline-scented fingers
(I had just topped off the lawnmower)
and reading Marie Howe when I put down
the book and thought about you.
Because you used to say things like,
We must be the only people in the county
listening to Mahler’s 8th tonight, or
I’ll bet we’re the only people in the county
who ate scrambled tofu for breakfast, or
…who made their own tempeh this week.
And as I sat there, tinted glass shading
my eyes from the late sun, tiny flies trying
furiously to find a way around the window,
I was sure I was the only person in the county,
maybe even all of Pennsylvania and beyond,
sitting in a car at that moment, eating
popcorn with gasoline-scented fingers,
reading Marie Howe, and wondering
if you knew.