Speaking in Mirrors

White Bread and Bologna

It’s sunny; a streak of chiffon clouds smear the sky.  At the park; pansies and snapdragons dot the garden edge, branches of tall trees wave in the warm breeze; moss, earth, and grass scent the air.  Two elderly men sit at a wooden table.  The thinner man, in the shade, is wearing a black jacket and brown pants.  His hands knotted with large veins tremble as he takes a paper bag and thermos from a grocery sack.  He fumbles with the plastic wrap around the sandwich; it is white bread, bologna, and sweet yellow mustard; he says, “Josef, in my next life I will come back as a seagull – at a landfill, I’ll be well fed there.”