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Chance Encounters
Chance encounters are the best things in life
Little morsels of goodness that can never be planned on
A very friendly albino-white cat on my walk
See a beautiful stranger and
A chance encounter with a fantasy
I’ll get lost in a daydream
Finding out I prefer daydreaming to the real world
My fictional characters to real people
And the version of me from daydreams
Better than the real thing
A chance encounter with all I could be
In theory, if I could ever learn
To pace myself, to have patience
To have faith in the good in humanity
And stop worrying about my life
Let go of trying to control
Every_ Little_ Thing_
Many front porches have flags on them
A show of patriotism
Only one front porch has a flag with
A sign that reads, “An eye for an eye
Only makes the whole world blind”
A chance encounter with
Maybe someone who’s fairly like me
But I can’t exactly go up, knock on their door,
And say, “Hi, I think we think alike
Maybe we should be friends”
Because they’d think I was crazy
And maybe I am
Up all night walking when I should be in bed
Finding out there are still deer in Portland
Wandering around for food
After all the humans have gone to bed
A chance encounter with such graceful beauty
I stand aside and gaze at them
Then take several steps backwards
To let them know I won’t block their path
And keep them from going home
I look up and see the half moon
Finally peeking out from the veil
Of dissipating rain clouds
And remember that every once in a while
We all get to have a chance encounter
With some little piece of beauty
Still left in this world
The Avenue Of Roses
She says, “Don’t worry it’s all treats
And no tricks, the only catch is
You have to pay in cash up front”
The Avenue of Roses is blooming
With carnal delights and HIV by the curbside
The tense police patrol the streets while
The disgusted citizens hate the whores
The women and forget to blame their customers
The men, or themselves for not helping
Teenage runaways or anyone else
In need in the first place
Ava Collopy is editor of and a contributor to Unity is Now: an Anthology of the UU Poetry Group,
and is the author of 8 Days a Week: the Story of Sean Flanagan, a novel based on her first four
years as an assistant landscaper and handyperson.
She is published in In Our Own Words, Language and Culture.net, and others.
She’s from Oregon and has lived in Los Angeles. She lives in Portland and is a gladly single, independent, life-long non-mother.
Email: Ava Collopy
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