When I was young, having been born in ’51,
I believed I’d live til 70, at 2021.
Much as Kierkegaard was surprised to see he’d lived to the age of 33.
So like he I was quite stunned, and
even surprised when seems that fate
fell awry, ambushed by time.
By my own device, twas watching in black and white
the pilot episode of The Untouchables, when I heard
outside constant engines revving like old drag race prep at the track near San Dimas, and the poomfiss of bottle rockets, the boom of bamboo el cañon
in this tropical midnight paradise where, the week before,
a typhoon named Odette sent a shallow-rooted cocoanut branch toppling on to pummel my roof gutter,
and we lived amid howling winds and flickering candles made from cotton swabbed in cooking oil.
And then, the covidridden inverse smash and grab of a year came to an end.
It’s now 5 a.m., having just awakened near dawn from Ike as prez and flurries in dark of gentle snow,
this repeating dreaming again….
