poem

 Middle

In the middle of the night

I had a nightmare set in the des

-iccated middle of the day

and I was surrounded by children

and I was a child myself

and we were all very afraid 

of the hot red noon

bearing down on us 

and forgot about the night

and the darkness to come 

when none of us

were ever allowed to see the moon.

At the end of my life

I recalled a moment from

the beginning of my life

when I had wandered away

from distracted adults

on a balmy summer day

and just kept following a path.

Sidewalks erupted in thrust faults

of adventurous texture

as archways of trees shielded me

from the terror or limitless sky.

The old lady who invited me 

inside for cookies and milk

called the police

and my uncle came 

and took me home 

in the back of his cruiser

with the lights flashing

like a dangerous criminal.

In the middle of my life 

I imagined the end of my life

chasing after the little boy

of the beginning, shouting his name

but the kid never looked back,

his little legs churning so fast.

No surprise, the end of my life

was tenacious and single minded—

It just kept coming and coming

as the boy grew bored and started to slack off.

He never turned around, not once,

even when the pursuer was close

enough to cast him in shadow

for the rest of his life.

At the beginning of my life

I imagined a middle and an end

of a tale which could be read 

either forwards or backwards

and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference

but if you opened to a page randomly

and just started reading,

the sense of sequence 

deliquesces to irrelevance

as all the boys I’ve been 

gather round to listen

to whatever happens next

5/1/25