The Empty Fountain is Filled by the Rain
Pink petals blossom where people avoid stepping. After years of being walked around and avoided, pink petals of paint peel from my cart as well. Small poems wrapped around driftwood from the coast line my shelves and hang from the hooks as necklaces.
One reads:
Life is an empty fountain
And it fills with our hopes, dreams, and ambitions
So keep your words clean and clear
Lest you taint it
Another:
I used to love the rain,
To taste, vindictively, the tears of god
As though a bad hand were the fault of the dealer
But the rain is bitter and unpleasant,
Now that you are my religion
A tourist recognizes the word for ‘love’ and purchases my scrap-wrapped driftwood for a dollar. I have taken one more step on my journey of a thousand miles to provide for two and afford a home; something small, one bedroom of course, because it is for me and my love. My guilt for burdening that American woman with a sad poem melts in the sun as fountain steam rises to heaven. The hot summer season is God holding us closer.
In the rainy season, when tourists are scarce and sales are rare, my heart, born in the streets, entrenched in the plaza bricks, drowns, drowns, and dies destitute, blaming the fountain for producing so little that the heavens take pity on it.