"Coke in Time" by L. Lois

“Renewal” contributor

hours slowed
to a crawl
as I waited
unable to work
without a car
high in the hills
of East Africa

what could I do
until the permits
and colleagues
arrived to whisk
us all into
action
with the sun setting the beat

every day
I thanked my hosts for breakfast
and walked
the dusty roads
coming back at three o'clock
precisely, with a whiff of desperation
for an unrefrigerated Coke in its glass bottle

L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting through her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies, nor time. Her essays have appeared in the Globe and Mail, her recent poetry In Parentheses and Woodland Pattern.