Bill at Seventy-Five

“This is a hell of a lot better than the alternative,” he said,

blowing out the candles with gusto and obvious pleasure

the way he did sixty-four years ago when he was eleven

and he could see the whole world from where he walked

and played in what he knew was the middle of everything.

The universe extends farther out from wherever he is now

than it did when he was a boy going to school and church.

Then whenever he came home at the end of a regular day

he knew without doubt where he was and why he was there

and how to get anywhere he thought it was necessary to be.