You Know
You know the way it goes —
you’re sitting at work and a coworker comes to you,
or you are at the start of a reception,
or even a party (if you go to parties),
and while sipping a glass of chardonnay, or merlot,
or while drinking a bottle of beer,
a random person starts a conversation
that you seem to enjoy at first,
until they take over the wheel
and veer you right into the wall of a theater,
and start talking about a movie
they think is hilarious, with actors
you can’t even pronounce, that they
assume you’ve watched a thousand times over.
And as we all have,
you stand stuck in the middle of a conversation,
about a movie you’ve never seen,
that you couldn’t care less about —
cramped in a corner like a clueless ape,
you nod and laugh: “Ha ha!” “Yep, yep!” “I know!”
My Partner’s Mother
for Ms. Susan
is from the Philippines —
Manila to be exact. She loves giving us snacks
from Hong Kong Food Market, shrimp chips,
siopao from Dong Phuong Bakery, and the occasional
bag of leftover donuts. She’s not able to visit much,
but when she does it’s always a treat — sometimes
the sweetest oranges of the season. Other times
a half eaten tangerine.
Ahrend Torrey is a poet and painter. He is a creative writing graduate from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. When he is not writing or teaching English in New Orleans, he enjoys the simple things in life, like walking around Bayou St. John with his partner, Jonathan, and their two rat terriers Dichter and Dova.