Wishing Doesn’t Matter

I wish I had a wall to lean on.
I wish it stood tall among the pines.
I wish it held back something;
maybe it does.
I don’t know what it could be.
It’s that good at its job.

I wish for so much I do not have.
I wish for peace, a shower, a moment to think.
I might get the last one, maybe the last two;
I know better than to expect peace
from anything in this world;
it’s a crock full of imagining, of lost causes.

I wish the coffee would migrate to my lips.
I wish the wall I dreamed of earlier would vanish
before the hot migration of the hot liquid up
and up, out of the mug, into me.
I bet neither of us knows how real that might be
but we keep wishing for it — a form of quiet, perhaps.

I wish I indeed had this wall to lean on but in the vision
it keeps falling, devolving to rubble, vanishing.
I wish its ghostly history mattered more
than it does. The history makers have swept it aside
and sweated it out. It’s gone, gone for good
or at least for my lifetime; nonetheless its symbol stands

among my souvenirs, my tchotchkes, my
useless rebellion of artifact; more useless
memories. I wish I had more than memories,
in fact. Wish some were still coming true
but I close my eyes against them. I drink the cooling coffee
with a tear in my eye. Useless. Useless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“
onward,
T