The younger me could never see omens,
Oblivious to foreshadow,
Now shining into focus from behind,
Backward looking glass reflecting reversed
That younger me easily seen
Now, shown all presaged prognostications,
Prefigurings betokening fortunes
Foretold in cigarette ashes,
Residue in the bottom of teacups.
All manner of bright comets
Careening across skies daily –
How retrospect resees in afterwards
Time waves rolling in behind me
Crashing up to now, me slipping on shores
Stony beneath my slippered feet –
They don’t call them slippers – in retirement
All I wear — for nothing – awkward
Dance party for one, so shy about all
In front of me, more non-participation.
So easily realized
After-facts, a tree rotting from the root,
The top collapsing into a stomach
Pit dark with doomed intimacies,
Dead silence, a conversation for one.
Lanning Lee 