To the Lady Who tried to Stop Me to Ask for Directions During My Evening Jog.
Jonathan Jones

 
The strange imposition
a nervous wave to slow me down
so oddly intimate never fails to spur
me on as though someone 
had interrupted me mid
conversation. It’s as though
I should remember your name
but can’t, because obviously
you’re a stranger, and if I’m running
that means I don’t want to talk
to you, or anyone really
and it was no doubt a simple question 
which would only have annoyed 
me even further if only I had 
stopped, removed my ear phones
and caught my breath, said
“It’s just over there” or 
“No, that’s Switzerland 
you’re thinking of actually.”

I think it may even have passed for God once. 
A moment of routine inconvenience, 
where the Divine signals 
a gesture we can’t comprehend.
Approaches us as though there were
nothing out of the ordinary 
about a city of destruction
or building an ark, 
or a Good Samaritan
just asking for directions
and we simply shake our heads
and keep running, pretending we don’t
even speak the same language.

 
 
 

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About the Author: Jonathan Jones qualified in 1999 with his M.A. in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University College and in 2004 with an MRes in Humanities from Keele University. He now teaches writing composition at John Cabot University in Rome. He has been published in East Jasmine Review, The Dr T.J.Eckleburg Review, Dirty Chai, Cordite Poetry Review, The Manifest Station, and The TransNational.

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