It is not unlike
the beach
watching the sun
rise slowly
in a yellow and
orange blanket of clouds.
Waves break with
nascent energy
onto the sand
higher and higher
until they are
in the streets of the city,
and I am a man
about town
who knows a
thing or two
about bicycles
and traffic
as I nod to
pedestrians
before climbing
the stairs
to make love for
the first time.
You see, it’s a
continuum,
this rolling
into the cosmos
on timed
contractions
and slipping
into one’s role
and a contract
to play a part.
Perhaps a
leading man,
although more
likely a tinker
or tailor to
swell a scene.
The process
never stops:
the first kiss,
the last kiss.
The new job, the
older wife,
the
twenty-something who must find himself
for reasons
unknown while hiking in Alaska.
You shake your
head,
knowing it’s all
birth.
I did, and I’m a
man about town
waiting for the
stage directions
to tell me to
enter, say that the king has died,
and then exit.
Maybe I’ll
return in a later scene,
a reincarnation
of sorts.
And when the
lights are down
the janitor
pushing his wide broom
down the empty
aisle,
the coffin being
selected
by the wife
older still,
that’s birth too
onto a beach
that we seldom
dream about.
~William Hammett
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