“I’m *****.”
That flirty rejoinder floats
over your disappearing
shoulder.

Thirty plus
years form the chasm
between us;
mine battered, distressed,
faded as an old picture frame;
the remainder of
yours a potential masterpiece--
highway to many horizons
with no vanishing point.

I am no more this man
before you than
I am the Fourth Horseman.
Certainly you see through
my fraud of calm indifference
and practiced control.

No beating I’ve taken
compares with that
my heart is doing right now,
remembered in a glimpse
of your legs
in ***** black stockings,
now walking away
in loose work jeans,
brushing dust
from everywhere.