The monkey danced a Polka. No one wants to take my
hand. I am lost to the busy streets, lanes, roads, highways
of life. I watch as birds fly by, dropping feathers on the
crowd. Streetcar bells clang out calling passengers to their
stop. No one sees me standing there – alone and lonely, I
climb on board. The ghosts of disemboweled dreams haunt
my thoughts. Where did I see that face before? Everywhere
I look, a circus of humanity. Time is an illusion placed in a
jar upon a shelf. I remember seeing it there, pushed towards
the back. I feel the pressure of distant mountains, as they
topple to the shore. The monkey plays with the jar, letting
time escape. The music stops. Passengers disembark.
After the dance is over, how does one tie up loose ends?
About the Author
Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry; nominated for the 2023 Dwarf Stars award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association; winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year. Her bio is featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers” 2020 and 2021.
