The adults are lonely in a special way. They take us to museums so we can learn from pictures how to round our shoulders just like they do, how to use window glass and mirrors to look outside and inside as if outside and inside are empty, how to share a table or a room with strangers without speaking.
Tom Laichas is author most recently of Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Los Angeles Times, Plume, The Moth (Ireland), the Irish Times, and elsewhere. He lives in Venice, California.