poem Out Of Place (Dreams 12/3/13), a poem describing a dream the night before that showed how trying to rekindle a friendship with someone who is morally wrong is can’t be done, By Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers

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Out Of Place (Dreams 12/3/13)
Janet Kuypers
12/4/13
I was leaving one of my fallback hangouts in Chicago
in the middle of a dreary, cloudy day, not unlike today.
I apparently was there alone, but I ran into someone I was once
friends with, we broke off our friendship years ago, but we
attempted to talk, to be cordial, almost in an attempt to rekindle
a friendship (though being together seemed disjointed and
out of place).
As we were leaving to go to our separate cars, to go
our separate ways and drive to our separate lives,
I asked what she was doing later, and she said she couldn’t,
she had plans. I never invited her anywhere, I never asked
where her children were, she just cut me off and told me
she couldn’t.
She then looked at the rows of Chicago houses on the block
where we walked; I always liked the square homes here
with flat roofs, this neighborhood was always my favorite place
to live... She looked, mentioned someone living in a Chicago house
like this, and she finally said that she couldn’t live like this.
“The second floor...the way it’s slanted. You probably
can’t feel it, but anything can come sliding off that floor.”
And just then I could see a vibrantly colorful bird sliding
off a slanted window awning and falling into the plant bed
in front of the house, hitting a wooden stake and disappearing
into the folds of greenery. I don’t know if the colorful bird
lived, but i couldn’t see any trace of the bird moving again.
#
You see, we were once friends, we used to be close, we laughed
and gossiped back when she thought I was her best friend.
But I know how morally different we are. She could be cordial,
but I know what’s underneath her fasçade. Because
even if we tried, I know we’d never get that friendship back.