VICIM

Near, where I live, is a strip mall.
Behind the strip mall,
near the dumpsters overflowing with trash
and garbage, is a
thicket.
In this thicket, the homeless go to sleep
and drink and do drugs.

In this thicket is a tree.
Someone has painted
the letters VICIM
on the tree trunk.
Vertically.
Each time I walk by,
I wonder what those
letters could stand for.

One day, I decided to
do a Google search.
VICIM is a city in Poland.
VICIM stands for-----
Virtual
Institute for
Chemometrics and
Industrial
Metrology
I have no idea
what that means.
VICIM is also a company
that sells innovative
mouldings.
There's a Portuguese
blogger named
VICIM.
There's a Romanian
company named VICIM
International SRL.
I have no idea what
they do.
I don't speak Romanian.

Then---I started to
think about it differently.
What if...
the person who wrote
those letters...
What if they merely
misspelled--- VICTIM...?

Roofers

Someone is getting a new roof in my
neighborhood.
The roofers seem happy.
They shout at one
another,
sing their songs and whistling too,
all in a language,
I don't understand.
They seem happy.
Is it because they
are high above the
rest of us?
Closer to heaven?
happy to have the work?
Have a job?
They seem happy.
With their snap, snap, snap...
and pop, pop, pop of
their nail guns.
They seem happy.

My Jacket

I like my jacket.
It's made out of wool.
"Dyed"
"Spun"
"Handwoven and finished
in the Outer Hebrides of
Scotland"
That's on the label
inside the jacket.
"Harris Tweed"
"Handwoven"
"100% Pure Scottish Wool"
That's there too!
Serial number 923064
"Tailored in the USA"

It's soft, comfortable and warm.
Small check pattern.
Mostly grey, with blue
and some green.
Mostly blue and grey.
It has a rip by the
right hand pocket.
How it got there,
I don't know.
I don't care.
It adds character.
My father liked wool
too.
He said it will keep
you warm, even if it
gets wet.
I like that.
I paid $3 for it at
the Thrift Shop.