WAYS IN WHICH WE ARE CHANGED
Someone once taught me
how to fold a plastic bag,
into a neat triangle.
Now my cupboard is full of them.
Someone else, putting exclamation marks
in front of a file name,
to bypass the alphabetical order
while respecting it.
Some other things we have learned
should not have been learned
at all, perhaps. Like loyalty
to the same brand of cigarettes,
or the same reticence
before words of love.
What have I done, that changed
something in other people?
I often talk of the pleasure
of the lone traveller, slipping into
a new city during early morning,
unseen, unnoticed.
Maybe this would turn out to be
my gift to the world and those in it,
maybe not.
April, 2014
