The girl in the checkout line
ahead of me is dangerously gorgeous.
In the way of the very young,
she insouciantly wears next to nothing.

I imagine myself twenty-one.
I would finagle a way to meet her.
We would fall in love.
We would make love. We would make
even more love and so on.
I would buy her a house, appliances,
a minivan. We would have two
teenaged daughters who would loathe me.
I would take out a second mortgage
to pay for their braces, clothes,
educations and weddings and divorces.
They would move away and rarely see me.

I would come to rest in some
******* of a nursing home wondering
who I am and what the hell happened.

Then she turns and walks out of my life.

I pay for my frozen pizza and cigarettes
smiling about just how lucky I am.

  ~mce