Bloomsday

By Thomas Page

 

If I had one day unrelentingly noted

By an expatriate in some Romantic country

Twenty or so years from now

What would they say?

 

How would they start?

With rambling thoughts as I groggily wake up?

What would be important?

What I ate?

Drank?

What I did on my phone?

 

How would they talk about others?

Those who interact with me?

Those who meander into my head?

Those who I remember due to some bird or some worm on the ground?

Those I don’t even notice?

 

How would they talk about Sangchu—

My cat—

Would she even be a part?

Would she cease to exist in the expatriate’s vision of my day?

 

I imagine them following me around

Like a sea-sent serpent

Lying low to the linoleum

As I nearly trample it.

 

Would someone be included,

Someone I kind of know?

Am the hero of the son

Or the son of the hero?

Would it be based on epic?

Some Achilles or Aeneas

Dressed in chinos and white and blue stripes

Fighting gods and warriors of metro cars or traffic lights?

 

Pageday

 

February 21, 2018?

Has it already happened

Or will it?

Where would Carthage be,

The Xanthus,

Ithaca,

Troy,

The Latins?

An entire chapter on the eating of breakfast?

An entire chapter on the car ride to the metro?

What is counted,

What is not?

 

I imagine the expatriate sitting by a city window

With pigeons sitting on the stone ledges

Giving foundation to a day without qualities—

A day I won’t remember too well.

A day of their own imagination.