SUNNIER DAZE

SUNNIER DAZE

Was it always sunnier back then?

Days as long, sweet and lanquid
as a strawberry Twizzler

Coaster wagons as red and gleaming
as a crate of Macintosh apples

In the background, the barking
of unseen mutts

The staccato hammering of roof repairs,
distant and  intense, like the stuttering reports
from a firing range

Lawn sprinklers twirling like ballerinas,
inviting us to rush headlong
into their cooling waters

Streets churning with baseball games
and shiny Schwinns, their spokes
chattering from baseball cards
swatting their spokes

Sidewalk lemonade stands
in daily duels with roller skaters
who whirr past hop-scotchers,
like wheeled angels

The universal law of summer
declared the harder we played,
the less it rained

The more we perspired,
 the more intense the fun

and maybe the memories slowly fade,
like old photos in the family album

But one thing never fades:
the realization that it was always sunnier
back then

COSTUMES

Sometimes in the crevices of night,
when the only sound is my own breathing

I ponder the mystery of death
and what costume it will wear when it comes calling

Will it assume the identity of a tumor
coarsing through my organs like a wild stallion,

trampling everything in its path until
I lay dormant, like an ancient artifact?

Will it spring like a Halloween prank,
dressed like an embolism

racing toward my brain, only to burst
its arterial boundaries in a tsunami of blood?

Or maybe it will skim the streets, all metallic,
careless as a tropical wave,

oblivious to traffic signals as it flies unrestrained
until it T-bones me as I contemplate dinner

Whatever costume it wears,
I will refuse to recognize it.

Instead, I will turn my back, naked,
and deny its presence.

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