Daniel E Haislet

“Excuse me. When did the Mongols rule China?”
“I don’t know, I just work here.”
The film has my mind wandering backward.
The photographs on the lighted mantel are of Haley’s Comet¬.
Sepia toned copies of smiling ancestors.
And us kids in 1991. They were celebrations in still life.
That year I saw a band play a punk rock version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow
At a carnival in Flagstaff.

“What about these cheeeldrin?”
My aunt shouted and hugged our heads.
I was nine and old enough to say it.
I told my aunt “I’m nine.”
39 now and that rapper I liked in the 90’s
is doing mid-week shows in empty bars.
Time is like that.

Like,
Haley’s Comet will one day,
when days no longer exist,
make a grand appearance past a dead earth.
I am finding that comforting.
I’ve been taking my pills as prescribed these days.
Blowing my mind and asking,
why is there something rather than nothing?
When I was a boy, I knew how very large I was.
I squandered it.