“What are you most looking forward to this summer?”
said the chalkboard at Caribou Coffee.

Someone had written TEXAS in huge letters.

I saw those giant letters as Nicolas and I walked in
for a variation on “The Ritual”,
my weekly festival of pen and ink.

What I failed to see,
was my little boy sneak over
to that chalkboard,
erasing those letters
and replacing them
with NICK.

Everyone’s got an end date,
TEXAS’ end date was today.


End Date

We’ve all got one.

All I want to do
is last long enough
to see
that they can cash a check
that they’ve earned,
get into a car that has their
name on the title
and get lost
if they want to.

Expiration date
on the old man,
the rhino with the ink pens
will be long passed one day.

In between,
there must be a handful
of dates that might mean
something,
maybe hold some memories.

But, really, none of those dates matter much.
What matters is that they get to use
it all up
by their own
end date.

*
- JBClaywell
© P&ZPublications; 2017