Mom doesn’t smile when I walk into her wing of the nursing home. If she weren’t demented, I’d wonder if she were mad at me. But there’s no way to find out because she doesn’t talk or walk or even look at me much. Except when I accidentally nap.  
 
Because we don’t chat endlessly and try to solve the problems of her kids or her friends anymore, I get a little bored when I visit. And after a two-hour drive, I usually fall asleep next to her wheelchair. 
 
When I wake, she’s watching me and smiling a little. And, she looks a little smug, like she alone solved my most pressing problem.

Lately I realized checking the time on my phone is a hassle in the rain and rude in the company of friends. So, I bought a watch – with a velvety moon face nearly the width of my wrist and a silver mesh band like the chainmail weave behind an armored knight’s knee. Only more delicate. In fashion lingo, it’s called a boyfriend watch.
 
Lucky, lucky me. Now I have the luxury of time with a whisper of testosterone and no beard scum in my sink.

Sleep was as much a character in the movie, Paterson, as was the poet/bus driver who wound his way through the neighborhoods of Paterson, New Jersey. I’m pretty sure nearly every scene opened with him and his girlfriend sleeping in their double bed.
 
Ahhh… Delicious sleep. When I get enough, I feel like I won an Academy Award.
 
 
 

The movie, Paterson, gives the impression that poetry arrives whole, unbroken. That the poet’s primary job is to get out the way and let it flow.
 
And that is part of the job. But mostly a poet is a plumber, muscling straight and elbowed PVC pipe into an elegant white labyrinth which directs water from the well and flushes crap to the sewer.