Revenge
I hadn’t seen him in years and
here he was waiting for the light
at Howe and Hastings going west.
I shook his hand and found it sweaty
partly because of the hot day,
never had such a hot July in years,
partly because he was stressed running
to his lawyer to sign the best deal of the century
words I had so often heard
back then, when I too was in the gutter and
partly because of the excessive layer
of fat all over his body:
life had taken its revenge on him
in such a strange and just way.
He asked what was up with me.
I said I wrote poetry.
He raised his eyebrows in disbelief
his face took a smirk: dreamer
he said and turned away,
light had just turned green.
I smiled the way you do when you see
sparrows hopping under the tables
of the plaza, and I looked at my friend
the truly ignorant, who unknowingly
had described me most beautifully.
Libros Libertad 