Reverie

Sigh … I look at the clock again … the fifth time in ten minutes. Could time creep along any slower? Only two days ago, the minute hand swept along the edge of the clock face the way a pelican cruises the foam edged surf of the gulf. But I was sitting on the dock then, the salt air uncombing my hair, and unknotting my mind, and carrying my kite and my heart into a sky ready to break open into vast blue, and enabling the frigate birds to sail up and down the shore higher than the ibis as they come in morning formation from the rookeries. I close my eyes and taste the sea. sigh. How could two days be so different? I want to hear the tide rolling onto the beach, the leaves of the foxtail palm rattling in the breeze, the gulls berating one another over a piece of crab, the dolphins catching their breath for the next dive…. instead, the weak voice across the room recounts for the eighth time how the neighbor works at night and never mows his grass and collects junk in his yard and lets his kid run wild and …. I smile politely, woodenly and glance at the clock ... the sixth time in twelve minutes …