Mr. Laska Late in Life and Early in the Day
He drains and coils the garden hose, done
shadowboxing with his most gigantic
and golden self. For the next hour or so
he deadheads lilies, recalling weddings
in shoreline towns where trees exploded
bud by bud and the sea was as green as a lime
and clouds were as white as a manager's shirt,
where young people were so casual about
their claim over him, their superiority
and genius, making light of his sad gratitude,
his spot between existing and exiting,
his color, the color of a pearl or the moon
seen through a cheap telescope. Soon he's
spreading murky gray crystals: late in life
each day can be as vast as the sea.
He thinks of his wife, whole again and lovely
as she strolls along the boardwalk past the
spindly grasses and blackboard menus and red-
and-blue umbrellas, eager to lie on the beach,
maybe remember him and the dead they share,
the young couples in brown photos peeling
from black pages who offer a smile and a roll
of fingers that curl like an early morning wave.
Structure
23 lines · 3 stanzas