Happy Monday

You Know

by Mary Jo Bang

You know, don't you, what we're doing here?

The evening laid out like a beach ball gone airless.

We're watching the spectators in the bleachers.

The one in the blue shirt says, "I knew,

even as a child, that my mind was adding color

to the moment."

The one in red says, "In the dream, there was a child

batting a ball back and forth. He was chanting

that awful rhyme about time that eventually ends

with the body making a metronome motion."

By way of demonstration, he moves mechanically

side to side while making a clicking noise.

His friends look away. They all know

how a metronome goes. You and I continue to watch

because we have nothing better to do.

We wait for the inevitable next: we know the crowd

will rise to its feet when prompted and count—

one-one-hundred, two-one-hundred,

three-one-hundred—as if history were a sound

that could pry apart an ever-widening abyss

with a sea on the bottom. And it will go on like this.

The crowd will quiet when the sea reaches us.