Michael Gallagher is the author of several self-published poetry books. He writes Bay Area poetry using hyper-local ingredients, colloquialisms, slang, and above all, personal experience. He is currently in the San Francisco State University MFA in Creative Writing program.
Eye Drops
Sitting on BART reading. A woman and her daughter sit next to me. The woman is holding a little handmade ofrenda with a picture of a smiling young man on the front. Beneath the picture it says Dad. At the foot of the picture are marigolds, a skull, a snickers and a twix candy bar. The daughter is absorbed in the photograph. Her mother stares out the window at blurry tunnels, unblinking. I bookmark my page and decide that today, I’m going to let it all out, I’m going to fully experience what I’m feeling. As my eyes water, I swallow hard. It’s like I’m bookmarking this page in my life. I think about how I didn’t take the time to make an ofrenda this year, for all the people I lost, two of them recently. I didn’t make the time and I feel devastated. Then I try to rationalize: I shouldn’t cry in public, it would just spread the darkness, like mineral spirits to oil paint.
“It’s just a ride,” I tell myself.
The train couldn’t cross the ocean without going through this dark tunnel.
I ground myself in shaky, deep breaths.
I get off at 19th and Telegraph and lug my bike up the narrow, frozen escalator. Before clocking in at The Fox Theater, I apply some eye drops, less someone spy those prior tears. Less someone notices that earlier that day, I saw everything so clear.
