as sure as I know I’ll finally stop driving at night and a certain tooth will eventually cause me money and grief and my ability to run isn’t long for this world, my string of dry days, reaching farther and farther, over and into the pond to remove algae and debris, will come to an end the look on my face when it happens should be worth some kind of admission, maybe a premium charge for a front row seat but that would need promotion, which might tip me off, and I’d be a

to be a parched flower and watch water pour over you, the joy must be immediate I know that high after the chain holding a lead ball of guilt, suddenly snaps like serving time, then seeing green trees under a wide blue sky as the prison door slams behind you another way is a nosedive into love or have love fall into you either way, you become a balloon floating over everything that would hold you down

how rare to reach 100 years old, even rarer to have a friend of that many years I didn’t know Bernard as a young, middle age or older man, only from the cusp of his century we are good chums, sharing the silly and deeper things that buddies do but when a history lesson is told by a history still living, just a few words colors the pages of the past and after ten minutes with him, I’m in NY, leaning against a building on Broadway, watching those overweight cars rumble