When it wasn’t my turn, I was told, rough time
lady, rough time. This was the last of the apathy
for a while. There was no longer any chasing
or tackling or hearing someone behind me shout
DUDE, DUDE, DUDE, as I punched his face
to stand for not that big a deal.
This was my new aloneness, like jean shopping
with just one part of your body—
not the head or the heart, but the soles of the feet,
the insides of the mouth.
Away from everyone, and they’re still saying, we’re running
out of time, we’re running out of time, and I, stripping down
to what I looked like 20 years ago, sit there
in my own traffic and look too real, to myself, to what’s
coming, what most certainly will be.