the platitudes of willful resemblance

58

58°F

too cold to run naked down the street

waving arms and shouting

looking now, out the window,

bearded old lover.

glancing past the fallen leaves,

children’s play things

to lovers new, now forgotten

like metamorphosis read in early

collegiate days, studying the

swan and Leda,

before the tempest

searching back over the certain memories

when everyone drowned.

or further back to children poetry

in Sunday school where

first crushed on a thirty-year-old

unmarried virgin, venerean fantasies

not understood by the prodigious youth

that still caressed stuffed bears

and elephants with bells in the ear.

laying back, falling back

into cushioned chair under

lampshade stained with yellow light,

muted reminder,

long ago

put away like infirm aspirations.

– Hoc Scripsi