Love and War, and parking on this campus without getting a ticket

I’d be better off at night, 

Somewhere on Stadium Drive…

Because they’ve really started cracking down on Davis, and I have two tickets now. 

Tickets I intend to pay in full as soon as I get to that box on my to-do list, thank you.

I thought it’d be funny to show them to you, 

But I realize you might think I’m crazy, like everyone does, or at least a whole lot do. 

It could be that you’re here to prod, or to take pictures of my head

Getting bigger and bigger. 

It’s Monday morning, in between my online class and my in-person class, and I’m saying thank you to Dafna for trying to teach me the art of rhetoric on-the-go. I leave the Zoom while maneuvering into the busy COVID parking behind the UL (the library where I used to sleep while my friends pulled all-nighters). 

A car parked on the right row turns on, headlights facing me. I wait, in the middle, for it to leave, so that I can turn into the spot directly in front of it, on the left row. It pulls right into my spot. “What the fuck,” I borrow from Socrates, or Plato, or any other person who thought knowledge belonged to a select few, and let them know it. 

Parking by the construction now, five minutes late to class, walking time not included. Down this far, you’ll never see me. 

Except, of course, if we end up standing together in the Pit, drawn by our vibrating centers to the apple core of the map. 

The X marks the spot and O, o, oh, why don’t you kiss me in one of those maskless moments, when everyone forgets they have lives to preserve, tugged on by memories unlived just waiting to take hold? 

There is no price to pay, 

Only grace and humming lips to lips accepted.  

I lock my car and hope it’s still there when I get out of class.