God in Parentheses

Every morning I pass the bank display window on 17th street and
staring at my own wind-blown reflection I always think I see someone staring back
and (every time) I realize it’s just a tall, wooden lighthouse painted red and white,
used for marketing or decoration or who knows what.
Maybe that is what we are to one another:
decorative wooden lighthouses in display windows, guiding one another
through black waters, and misty mornings, and sidewalks filled with strangers moving in differing directions and discordant speeds.
Further down the man selling falafel and fried eggs from his food truck hands
people their change through the steel window and I stare at the Tropicana orange juice bottles on shaved ice pebbles.
(I don’t know why this matters
But somehow it does)
They smile as they walk away, clutching breakfast sandwiches in brown paper bags
Inside they are wrapped in foil
The way my dad used to do for my brother on Sunday mornings
He left the sandwich in the warm toaster oven
To stay heated until my brother woke up
(I don’t why this matters
But somehow it does)