When Life Gives You Sour Milk

Winda Hasuki | Poetry

Like a true loner, I fear the one thing

I'm good at. I look up to see passersby

buying lunch & time, as I sit behind

a stained window, with a cup of melting

frozen yogurt, & for a second there,

it’s rather simple to pretend I'm not

watching life on mute. In no rush,

I push the sourness under the chocolate

sauce & crunchy wafers, I tap my toes

to this pop song I used to hate (a favorite

of a friend, whom I no longer talk to).

There’s no shame, I suppose, in mourning

death, even when the dead is still alive,

somewhere, just not here. Perhaps, in a

different city, she, too, is walking past

a shop—inside, a stranger trying to make

a life out of his life, one spoon at a time.