There, that's the beginning, and no, I don't normally sound like that. Let me explain. Last week I went to Miami. I found myself with extra vacation time and feeling lonely, I decided to go on a little adventure. I packed a few t-shirts, shorts, shades, a bikini and off I flew to Miami. I didn't know what I was looking for, aside from a few sunsets and good Cuban food. Anyway, I went to  Miami. . .

The first few days in Miami were nice, even the hotel was nice, but that's really unimportant. To understand this poem you must first understand what happened to me there—nothing profound mind you, just an event that led me to this poem. Anyway, I'm in a park. I don't know its name but it's a park where everything is really nice and well-maintained. There are several trees and exotic flowers. A lot of people were hanging around, hanging out on permanent vacation, you might say. They didn't seem to be too concerned with work, they just sat in the sunshine, shaded by trees. The sky was so incredibly blue! And it was quiet—city noise was reduced to a background shooosh. Most of the people hanging out were lying on, or wrapped themselves up in, fading tattered blankets. The park resembled a picnic of sorts, a not-so-motley festival. Anyway, there was this guy I couldn't help noticing because he was so unreal, or so real. . . . This black guy walked around the park in big circles talking to himself very loudly. He looked potentially dangerous. Businessmen near his path carefully re-directed their walk, watching his every movement. I watched him too like crazy, I couldn't help but stare. The thing that frightened me about him was his eyes. His eyes were crazy and constantly moving, not at all like normal people's. He kept looking up at the sky, which bothered me. Was this guy on drugs? Should he be?
After a while, I moved on to do some shopping.

The city was filled with busy people. You got the sense that there's something really important about to happen at any moment. Everyone seemed so important, and they were all so well-dressed. I felt very out of place walking among so many suits, silk shirts, and briefcases. There are some real fast walkers in Miami, I couldn't keep up. Most of the men had a certain way of pushing ahead, it's the way they moved their bodies—eyes forward, shoulders shoved outward—modern lords of the streets, you might say. It was odd seeing them mix in among the shoppers and store shops. In Miami there are so many shops, all selling cheap radios, fake gold watches, beepers, cellular phones, you name it, stuff I could easily get at home in the mall. Now comes the part about her, she, that nameless woman I wrote this poem about.

She was this woman I couldn't believe. She was beautiful, in a way, but she was really dirty, and from the look of her clothes she was also homeless, but still healthy-looking, tall, and young. I watched her, wondering, was this performance of some sort, a "happening," you know? Was she on drugs? She had that spaced-out look in her eyes. This woman really affected me, and that confused me. Life felt so absurd. I felt so absurd, shocked by my world whose meaning twists and turns so softly. I felt an urge to follow her, to wander around many weird places behind her. I sat on the bench watching her move past. I felt a compulsion to touch her, greet her, have her greet me. I didn't do any of those things of course. Instead I sat feeling sad and sweet and slow and confused. Who watches reality (not the voice, but the seer. . . the vision that ripples and breaks like water on the face of the world), who is the seer? What makes some people not see what others see, walking around confused, stupidly trying to communicate between two worlds or three worlds or four worlds circling madly in reflection?

I almost got up, but I didn't. I didn't know this woman whose life I was making a romance of. Then I remembered my bus was leaving at 2:00. So I walked back to the station and waited. During the wait she was in my thoughts—not that I knew anything about her. Mostly I just sat at the station dazed, knowing that something important had happened, clueless as to what it was. I wrote this poem about it, that was the best I could do. I'm amazed at what I wrote now. I'll think about it for around a year. I think I captured some of the moment's tone. You see, I collect things: past moments, washed out intensities. I collect them and put them on paper. I collect bits and pieces, hoping to discover self, hoping to spark a paper revolution. Or at least spend my lunch break trying.