He chased simple pleasures like a rebel satisfied.
Like an old man who would not lie down quietly
he stirred with accessorized energy he neglected to leave
at home beside his sunning hat
on radiant, domestic shores.
He drove upland with me by his side
hardly noticing what little difference my presence made.
He tickled the wind rushing by on straightaways.
He pet the gearstick playfully
around corners. And up hills and down hills
his right hand would punch and pull and slide.
We came to a fork,
took the left that rose,
shifted down by shoving forward.
Those seconds return a ghost.
On easy, breezy sun-warmed sand
I comfortably stretch my toes
and know that though I’m not where I am,
that vision is peacefully imposed.
The best of men left five years hence,
and still I step from room to room,
and I cannot transition without
a shift with back snug and a boost
with head forced to rest.
These days we are condemned
to wander familiar halls,
if halls we’re blessed to have,
or fewer rooms leased with less rent.
Our quarantined days hemmed in,
our safe world safe and small.
But I live in past non-sequiturs
still images, clips that just fit the frame.
A sleepy life won’t catch the eye
when the mind returns to easy days
where pavement sped by
the mist between now and there.
Same returns to same.