Don’t Steal Others’ Religions

“And what do you need that for?” she asked,
I was in the Himalayas
On a bus full of tourists.
It was me, two Germans, two Thai, and an Indian woman
All along for the visit
To the sacred meditation cave,
Or so they told us it was, the guides driving,
And I bought a small box of the red forehead dots
From a little market.
“And what do you need that for?”
The Indian woman had asked me
When she saw that I purchased them.
The same response
I had gotten years before I took my Himalayan journey
While I was hitch-hiking through the American Southwest.
I was picked up in a small town
By a large man driving a little Honda,
He barely fit in the driver’s seat, that little steel-box on wheels,
Me and my travelling bags fit better in our place in the passengers’ seat
Than he did in his own car,
He had said he got it on discount,
And that the mileage was good for his work commute
Working for the railroad companies,
But he was recently retired
And still driving it around the desert.
“And what do you need that for?”
He had responded to my response
To a story he had told me.
A story about his younger days
As a big man on campus,
Picking up local girls at the colleges and bars
And taking them to hotel rooms
And buying a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of olive oil
For the night’s lubrication
Or something,
And I had laughed,
Enjoying the man-to-man comradery
And responded that I would do the same in the next town,
Buy a bottle of olive oil, that is, since I already had whiskey,
Trying to emulate the big man’s idea of the good life,
To which he blank-facedly responded,
“And what do you need that for?”
Oh, nothing, I had thought to myself, just forget it.

The Park Swing

I was just
Sitting on a bench
By a park
Reading Raymond Carver

The bench faced the park
From across the street

As I was sitting there
Reading
I heard a creaking noise and looked up
The swing in the park was moving
But I saw no sign of anyone

I kept my eyes on the swing
It was moving
And there wasn’t anyone on it

I kept my eyes on the swing
Thinking I might be experiencing a visitation by a ghost
Or something, it wouldn’t have been the first time

Then I noticed him

There
Under the swing
In the darkness
In the sand of the park
A sleeping man
Or, better put, a man just waking up

Seeing him wake up there
Under the strange movement of the empty swing
In the empty park
I decided myself to rise from the bench
And walk into town

It’s around 5:30 Sunday morning
Here in Levico, the sun’ll be rising soon

I guess he slept in the park
For the same reason I was reading Raymond Carver on the bench at 5 in the morning

And the sun’ll be rising soon enough

James Harold Storbakken is an American poet, novelist, short story writer, and gastronomie/food writer. He is the author of a book of poems, A Portrait of Odysseus Under the Ithacan Sun, and his fiction, non-fiction, translations, and poetry have been published in various anthologies, journals, and literary magazines. He currently lives in Andalusia.