Talking by Terence McCaffrey

I talk about mid-century 

while the old dog scratches 

at the door. I talk 

about fast-forwarding you

to thirty, how you’ll be 

fine but often unhappy.

I talk about you standing 

on the threshold 

of a wide, white-capped sea. 

Slate gray water, floods,

and that mystical window 

of light-infused sky. I talk

ash and bones and ash again. 

Seldom, however, do I talk 

candidly about myself,

the pains of not knowing

my life and what will 

realistically, irrevocably

unremarkably happen next.