A Poem For Bryan

I was three miles out
and turning back at the top of the
Back Bay, a Santa Ana blowing
through the canyon hot and dry,
and I saw a woman walking on the
other side of the path
towards me,
she was old, overweight,
she was walking quickly,
leaned forward, her shoulders
hunched over, gravity pulling her
neck towards the earth.
She looked at me and smiled,
beautifully, her face alight, eyes
shining, she raised her hand up
halfway, shyly,
and I looked at her and mouthed
"good morning" as I passed.

Your dad's going to tell you the things
you need to know so that you can protect
yourself as you do the things that are coming.
And that's good, that's right, that's what he's
supposed to do
But what nobody tells you when you're
fourteen years old is this:

Last night I was drinking in an Irish pub
with a beautiful girl, this was the second
time we'd met, we were talking entirely
adult things: careers, our exes, our children,
contact lens stories for chrissakes.
We were sitting at a bar and I turned
slightly towards her and our knees touched
and I wondered whether she'd think this was
forward or accidental. It was getting late and she needed to
relieve her babysitter and I walked her out
towards her car. I was next to her,
I would have tried to take her hand if I had
known which car was hers. We kissed in the
parking lot, me leaning against the door of her
car, she leaning against me.

And why am I telling you this?
Because I'm almost forty years old,
my hair's going grey and getting thinner
on top, I can't seem to sprint 40 yards
without pulling a hamstring,
I've got to get a child raised and figure
out how I'm going to survive the next
year, the next five years, but there
are some feelings you have that
never go away.