THE RETRUN

By: Edith L. Tiempo

If the dead years could shake their skinny legs and run
As once he had circled this house in thirty counts,
He would go thru this door among those old friends and they would not shun
Him and the tales he would tell, tales that would bear more than the space
Testimony of willed wit and his grey hairs.

And he would live in the whispers and locked heads.

Wheeling around and around turning back was where he started:
The turn to the pasture, a swift streak under a boy’s running:
The swing, up trees, and not so tall as he had imagined:

The rocking chair on the porch, you pushed it and it started rocking,
Rocking, and abruptly stopped. He, too, stopped in the doorway, chagrined.
He would go among them but he would not tell, he could be smart,
He, an old man cracking the bones of his embarrassment apart.