Carpe Momentum

The Day After You Turn 77

The night before you had left the plastic porkpie hat (a birthday gag gift from your Duck Blind friend Machonne) on the newel post, and a lifetime later, it seemed, opened your eyes

to the next day, a day, you’ve come to know,

that may or may not be a moonwalk

into the next next day, when you glance out

the window (next to that mess of a desk),

blue sky, gale winds, Spanish

moss swaying like Martha Graham dancers,

wondering what this day might bring

(if it would bring anything)

beyond coffee, writing (your solo pas de deux)

after which you might imagine yourself

skipping down the stairs,

a latter-day Charlie Chaplin donning the porkpie

hat and dancing over to the Publix, maybe

work in the yard, bike across to Sands

Beach, then on to the Wetlands, cruising past

gators patrolling the murky water, wood

storks nesting high in the trees,

a pink spoonbill on a fallen log, pedaling back

to the Duck Blind for a Manhattan

with your girl on the porch,

splash of orange and pink sky, sun disappearing

beyond the marshes behind Battery

Creek, the Low Country

going dark, blinds closed into the dance of sleep

as we leave our bodies, still as wind,

wild as eternity

—SL, Port Royal SC/New Paltz NY, May 2023