Kirby Olson
Overheard
Past the green-headed cone flowers
near the Met,
I heard a woman sob into her cellphone,
“That’s not mental illness.
That’s poor time management.”
I went into the Met
And saw Manet’s
Execution of Maximilien
of Mexico, and heard a man say,
“Max was an international man of leisure.”
It was time to get my wife at Newark airport.
I checked my cell and was still on time.
I walked across the park and
heard in a CVS, “Broadway is safe at night.”
I went thirty blocks up Broadway to 102nd.
On time, I drove through the Lincoln Tunnel.
As I sat in the cellphone lot at Newark,
I saw a man point out the moon to his daughter.
“It is possible that there is water
in the Shackleton Crater on the moon.”