Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before (1871), by Charles Caleb Ward. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
February is checking my e-mail
while waiting at the drive-thru
dry cleaners to pick up my husband’s
work shirts, pressed razor sharp
and the girl asking from the backseat,
“What does that mean, The McRib
Is Back?” Suddenly this city I once
understood so well and even almost
loved is made purely of real estate,
and I am driving and driving through it,
deeper into my middle age, children
strapped into their seats behind me.
They are having their childhoods
right now. The McRib is back. The heart
of the world is large, but sick. I think
of Jesus. How it must’ve been such
a relief for that sliver of the population
who saw him walking amongst people,
touchable, right there, and believed.