Writing what I don't know

I write my grocery list

Taxes

Scribble down recipes

 

Writing what I know: not knowing, of abject terror, of emptiness.

 

I got off a plane with absolutely no idea of

                                                                                    What next.

 

The airport parking lot at night, grey beneath arc lights

Pacific Time Zone, already midnight in Chicago

Time passed, past, no going back

 

My son-in-law picks me up, the only car in the lot

As we roil out I try to pick out something familiar, something I know

 

We look for the parking stub thing in order to pay before exiting

 

All I know is this one life

                        And it seems in short supply of answers.

 

So why do we make people write what they know?