07.01.14 - 5:32 p.m.
when there is no more grandiosity -
all of that, what little there was, having been
relegated to youth or coinciding at least with
another life that took place in your relative youth -
there is predictability, the making of breakfast,
the eleven o'clock train, your habits
wearing grooves into discs of plastic nobody
has the energy to sort through anymore.
there are your programs, the coffee, the children's vitamins.
no one asks for your hand in marriage.
no one risks embarrassment. somebody
loses a shoe in the crosswalk; somebody needs
a button replaced. embarrassment is a foregone conclusion.