today in the grocery store
i saw two men,
at least in their late fifties,
maybe in their sixties,
i couldn't tell, they just looked sort of old to me

at least one of them was wearing a fidel castro hat
the one with the fidel castro hat was also wearing these
patchwork pants of many different colored patches that looked like hippie pants
the other one was wearing a long peasant skirt, with as many different colors
as the patchwork hippie pants
the one in the skirt was wearing some sort of teva like sandals

i saw them again as i was walking home from the grocery store

you could tell by looking they still thought the sixties cultural revolution was still important
and they were still doing something important
and that they were still important
because they lived through the important sixties cultural revolution
and made all magic happen in their hilarious patchwork pants and peasant skirts of many bright colors
on my way home i saw them walkling somewhere
i didn't follow them so i can't say where

i read that lonely people look forward to grocery shopping

a few months earlier in that same grocery store
i saw this really old man  who was looking up at the cans in the aisle with the cans
there was a bag in his cart, in the bag some sort of depends like under garment

i looked at that and just thought
oh man, this is not good
his hair was very white
he was wearing some sort of clog
to indicate that he too
had done his part to bring about very important social change
despite the bag  not being discrete enough for the contents

11 years earlier in the same kind of grocery store
a few blocks down
another old man with a white pony tail
and a crocheted hat or beret
starting talking to me about debbie harry
i was wearing a blondie tshirt that was way too tight

he wanted to talk about that shirt
he told me he had lived in san francisco sometime ago
or something like that
maybe he said something about cbgbs and inciting
social change or haight ashbury and the glorious cultural revolution
of the sixities

and how he had been there for all of it
i told him that we couldn't be friends with everyone all the time

he got mad when i said that
this was in the produce section
i walked away as he was putting something round into a plastic bag

that guy is probably dead now

i thought i moved on from all that
but i found something i really loved
and let it ruin my life
so i came back to all that
i just pay a lot more for it now

my cashier  was paula
when i was checking out at the grocery store
a few saturdays ago

paula asked me how my day was going,
which was night by then
i asked paula how hers was going

soon paula brought up the hot weather
and how she liked it, but the only time she went outside
was to go on a smokebreak

her doctor put her on vitamin d suppliments
because she hadn't gotten enough vitamin d
or sun

because everytime she went out on her smoke break
she was wearing her black sun visor and her black half zip
and her black pants
always covered up

paula also told me she didn't drink enough water
her doctor had told her she had to drink 16 ounces
of water for every cup of coffee she drank
because coffee dries you out

Finally got my second chance,

The other night or other day
I  had a dream I sent this man I work
with an email, I think from my personal email address,

Revealing something I can't remember now
that was too personal in nature.
As soon as I sent it, I realized it
was the end of the world. I knew I couldn't unsend it

so I braced myself and told myself so what.

Then I woke up and was relieved this was just a dream,
this whole thing that never happened, just one less thing
to worry about.

But it felt like so close of a call.

That was last week or something,
Today I work, I go on too loudly,
He can always overhear me.

Sometimes I pass him in the hallways,
I look the other way.

Maybe it wasn't a second chance at all,
Just a retelling of what really does happen,
every day, every day.