I talked to Maria on the phone yesterday for two hours. I was overthinking. All the shoes she bought for our friend Vittoria—who had rheumatoid arthritis, a cat named Willie Boi, a red kidney bean soup on the stove, and conversation starters about death—are in a closet on the lower east side.
Altogether in a long line with the Marias, we’ve been standing in the queue for quite some time now. Waiting: an act of readiness. A poem cannot confirm or deny. Behind the Marias in a line all the way out the door, down Memorial Drive, almost to the Paterson bus station—wait for it—is a bus driver yelling, what are you waiting for?
I set an egg timer on the kitchen counter to remind me to go outside—after I hung up with Maria—to stand on the front lawn for International Lesbian Visibility Day. After an hour of waiting around, a bus load of Marias drove by, so I went back in to call Vittoria at the office. She’s been dead since March and she’s still taking appointments. Her voicemail says she’s available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. What days are you available?
