Joshua Keiter

When the characters
From that most familiar film
Reprise all their roles

Recognizable
And in fact mostly alive
As if they had been

Quoting the lines to
All their fans for all these years
Not even aging

But remembering
Death as an old friend saying
I’ll take care of you

I hope that is how
We recognize each other
Taking off our masks

At the end of this
Without having aged a day
Knowing all the lines

Enthusiastic
We get to share the same breath
All over again

Inconceivable
To mean what we think we mean
To act as you wish

Darkness creeping in
Season of open windows
Up the hill backwards

Scary monsters and
Super creeps keep me running
Almost forty years

Was I only nine
Cassette playing on headset
The school year starting

Election looming
Pieces of teenage wildlife
Scream like a baby

Now a memory
The first abyss of twilight
It’ll make me sad

So I’ll dance my life away

Orange sky followed
Us as we drove through these states
Sun might never set

We never forget
What some will not remember
Fire can be put out

Power at all costs
Becomes deafening silence
And failure to lead

There are known unknowns
And then there are unknown knowns
Now knew is old news

I cannot look back
At what I wrote months ago
Since nothing has changed

On the back forty
Swamps become ponds while paths go
In new directions

Moon rise on the lake
Quick get out your camera
Cloud has other plans

Embers keep burning
Until you throw water on
Another log then

A night with no sleep
Sunrise is magnificent
See what you have missed

Driving in the dark
Music proof of time passing
Tempos seem faster

Than you remember
As if lived in slow motion
Now there is less time