“A Taste of Serendipity”

Damian Vladimiroff

Have a taste of serendipity.

It tastes foul, yet smells fair.

It’s wanton and wanted.

It shoves into any scene,

As though a circus,

In drab, drums, and droll.

And I saw it smile at you

As she took a seat by you on the train.

You struck awkward conversation about has-beens

And where-tos. I saw your heart agonize

Beneath the flesh and color of your cool.

The brain churns to cobble words;

Within the human frame,

The primordial panic button is ablare

Amidst modern conversation.

And the circadian machine

Greases out beads of sweat;

The saline enters the already

Suffocating atmosphere of the train;

Its fumes congeal into a mire.

She looks down at her phone.

You retreat into the pages of your book; into silence.

It’s 70 miles until Moynihan — you’re almost home.

Yes, serendipity’s awkward at first — but never dress

Like a mallard in a hen house if playing the part of a

clown.

A pair of eyes dart about, readjusting the crosshairs of

a mind

Prying its way out of that aching situation.

You look at the passengers: nearby, a zebra in a

Haggar suit

Reads The Times — too caught-up in a world of black

and white

To read for the lives between the lines.

Rumbling, a dark billow eased up to the platform

Of a station on the Sound.

From the window seat I saw a radiant head of hair

Amidst a checkered crowd, exit at the stop;

I saw that your onlooking tear-jerked eyes

Were nipped by the brackish current of regret;

I saw you flop and flounder in an estuary of pride

And wash away into a bay of embarrassment.

Now you know: always wear that audacious badge,

A winning smile — and a firm resolve too,

When even sipping on coincidence.