In illo tempore 2

"Only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I

have made it empty". (As You Like It)

___________

"Boston"

(for Kathleen Popek)

I saw her (en route to outdoor skies) draped in medals good enough to bite &

felt that she's still good for one more race. Anything that rises like hills and

the runner's chanting breath can be safely encased even in this place. The place I'd

met her, I thought, looked very much like an urn softening in late summer light.

And it does.

I saw a smile, too, elegantly visible to aging guys like me that like to revisit old

A-frames & playgrounds (she'd seen, too!), fading screen doors and moms,

and would always put--as I did!-- a real among the plastic roses by her name.

It's wilted, of course, but not til it'd stood tall for a time, firm &in full bloom,

like a runner