Looking Back

Looking Back


Now I must really be
getting old!
I don't even feel
destroyed returning to a city
where I used to be peripheral
to the upright buildings
whose doors open and close
to business.
Reality used to slap my face
every time a pretty woman
clicked beside me on the sidewalk
and I flinched inside my
self-conscious sanctuary--
wanting very much
what wasn't good for me
if I was ever to become
whoever someone in me believed
I should. As if the world
were a casting studio
endlessly auditioning
Hamlet,
and I had come in from the rain,
forlorn enough
but ignorant of my lines.
There must be a way, I thought,
to settle into life without being
asphixiated by the posturing
required. To have a wife, job,
children and purpose of my own.
So now
that I'm walking down
this identical city street,
comfortable among the strangers
who aren't any stranger
than I used to be,
why
do I feel regret?


Joseph Somoza