on safety
BY MARY ANN SAMYN
Beauty makes some men mean; I never can console them enough.
Lifetimes later maybe, a little red fox lies on the side of the road.
I’m the type to notice.
I help myself that way, and dream my father more alive.
He waits again by the library door
as he is, was, and always will be.
I held the book, any book, to my heart, everlastingly.
The rain is heavier now. It is dusk.
Someone whistles in the street. Is it a man? It must be.