-for all the benchseat manipulators-

the old men are dropping like flies.

the strangers listed in the newspapers,—
the grandfathers, the uncles and the portuguese

guy who lived across the street who

dropped like a lazy fly ball
to the outfield grass on Tuesday
and is now ready for viewing.

I was young and lived through it

to what I am now which is old
but still living.

It’s hard to disapprove

of one's earliest yearnings,

those which are expressed

as a rite of passage.

even so, I was hesitant

to drive up there with her,

up the hill to the Narrows where

the forest blinds the standing water.

It was untrue when I told her

we'd go to the movies and then

cross the street to someplace nice to eat.

It came more easily to tell her

(after I stopped the car,
after I shifted to first gear
from the column and turned
the engine off and cracked the window,

after I pulled the lever up
and pushed the benchseat
back on its rails as far as it would go)

softly, cautiously, with but a modicum

of the current situation's half-truth, that I loved her.