In Search of Another Ending

banjo doppelganger

How can I know what I am going to write, until I sit down to write it?

How can I know what I am going to play, until I sit down to play it?

I am not on a train, but Joe Brainard is.

At the bar, I look out my banjo warning that I approach it as an experiment, that I played for two years before even trying to tune it properly.

My family bought it for my 41^st birthday.  Now I am 45.

After I played, a woman with mountain girl eyes told me how she loves my story, how she saw me play at Marcie’s two weeks ago.

That wasn’t me, I said.

Oh.  She didn’t seem that surprised.

You mean there’s another woman who looks like me, plays the banjo like me, and has my same story?

She nodded, smiling.  “Yes, but now that I think about it, she has glasses.”

Nothing is new but the path we choose.

Zuihitsu is a literary style of the late tenth century Japan, the practice of following the whim of the pen.

Boundaries dissolve.

The neighbor is cleaning his grill.

The boys are due back soon.

I remember thinking I was done.

I remember thinking there is no end.

banjo moon