man
bench
sun

Facts are not
a life.

Details.

old man
park bench
hot sun

Better,
but not enough.

An old man
on a green park bench
baking in the hot sun.

Closer,
but not the truth.

An old man,
still boyish,
sitting on a
green park bench
baking in the hot sun
remembering
that strange young girl
wearing
a paisley scarf,
red and blue silk,
standing like Venus
poised above
blue Aegean water
on the deck
of a white steamer,
her black hair flowing,
four decades past.

Closer still, yet missing...

An old man,
still boyish,
sitting on a
green park bench
baking in the hot sun
remembering
that strange young girl
wearing
a paisley scarf,
red and blue silk,
standing like Venus
poised above
blue Aegean water
on the deck
of a white steamer,
her black hair flowing,
four decades past.
He smiles,
considering
her hot breath,
her long sighs,
her silken thighs:
she lives again.

The poem at the confluence
of memory and imagination
engenders the stories
which render meaning.

Stories about stories;
all we can know of life,
yet enough.
-mce