It was a dangerous time to be alive,
but I guess we were pretty good
at knowing and moving along anyway.

We thought the speed limit
was more of a guideline than an actual law.
We got lost so often as kids
that there was actually a few years
where we thought Cleveland went on forever.

You used to smile a lot more
back in them days.

Not that either of us know
much about that anymore. It seems
that the days of bad lines about
teeth and daisies are far behind us.

Still, something about notes the solar system makes,
the color red, the sting in our eyes -
I suppose that means that something is there.
Of course, something could be subjective
or subliminal or nothing at all. Your call.

Seems now our hands are bound,
there's not much left to endless
much less forever.

When we were kids
you were in the habit of wearing your Halloween costume
in late-September and telling anyone who was half-listening
that your attic was constantly at war
with the basement for which one was the most haunted.

Somehow
you’ve managed to get old
and apply that idea to every grocery store, church and dance hall
in a world where the population is six million strong
and two million helpless.

Sometimes
you drink a bottle of wine,
break the same window twice
and chase young men for days at a time.

I sew steel plates into my leather jacket
and check my watch whenever I cross the street.

It's still funny how the past is always brought up.
The somehow, the sometimes, but not
the who and when and why. You forget what
a curious creature looks like; we find a habit,
healthy or not and cling like hell as if
it won't be back with the sunrise tomorrow.

What I'm getting at other than
to tell you to knock it off is that
you never know what you get
when catching the cat's tongue.
There's something to be said for caught
versus loose and what that does for ambiguity.

I'm still baffled by the looks we give
as if we could never reach the other,
two feet apart, almost bigger than
the waves, bigger than the tide pools
left in my eyes.

Life has taught us plenty,
enough standing still.

It sure has,
and I say that with what little sarcasm
as the good Lord provides me with.

I don’t find humor in everything anymore.
When I laugh it’s either because it was funny
a few hundred times before,
or it’s some kind of terrible I haven’t run into before.

You could say that more and more now,
I’m holding onto my best. I assume without question
that the grand finale is coming up soon,
and that it might just have the capacity to last two years.

If not five.

12/23/2010

Author's Note: Ms. Bagley doesn't write often, but when she does there's a good deal of talent behind it. Her writing never ceases to be a hell of a good time to collaborate with.

Posted on 12/24/2010
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard