Where has all
the time gone in his life
one moment
he’s walking his girl
to her math class
next he’s doing the after-dinner dishes
so her new nail polish
won’t get spoiled
one moment
all he can think about
is kissing her
next he’s waiting two hours
in the Orthodontics office
while she gets a root canal
one moment
he’s obsessing if she’ll really spend
her life with him
next he’s reliving their first date
first kiss, their first “I love you”
over and over
and over again in his mind.
She never said a word
not one word
to me in high school
but I never expected
her to why would she have she
was stunning—beautiful and confident
athletic and popular
with her blonde hair and tight
unstoppable teenage body
so when I received a Facebook “Friend Request”
from her I hit the “Accept” button so fast
I almost fell off my chair!
And yet I still had the audacity
to expect her to respond
to the dopey note I sent her:
“I just had to say hi
now that we are ‘friends’ on FB,
how are you?”
Of course she never responded
how could she, no of course she couldn’t
reminding me that even after 50 years
some things never change
without upsetting life’s delicate balance
reminding me that I should have remained
tongue-tied and awestruck, content
with my humble place
within the universe’s unimpeachable physics
and oddly I am.
is a recently retired baby-boomer poet freed finally after working 40 years for
“The Man” and sometimes “The Woman.” No more useless meetings
under florescent lights in stuffy windowless rooms. Now he’s able to devote
serious time to making better poems when he’s not, of course, trying to satisfy
his wife’s legendary Honey-Do List.