LIFE IN THE TIME OF __

The flags were at half-mast again
beneath the freeway-colored sky.
He’d half expected it, but then
could not remember why.

He made lane changes and left turns,
and finally reached the parking lot –
how strange the things a body learns
to do without a thought.

He parked, but let the engine buzz
a while, and sank into a stare –
he never wondered where he was,
just how he’d made it there.

The engine idled buzzingly,
the gray took hold of either eye;
he tried to think of it, but he
could not remember why.

By David Rosenthal

Biography:

David Rosenthal lives in Berkeley, California, and works as a teacher and instructional coach in the Oakland Unified School District. His poems and translations have appeared in Rattle, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Measure Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Raintown Review, Unsplendid, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, and many other print and online journals. He has been a Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award Finalist and a Pushcart Prize Nominee. His collection, “The Wild Geography of Misplaced Things,” was released by Kelsay Books in 2013.