Before Desert

imaginary friends

of childhood

–audience, scapegoat, and confidant–

morph. . .

don bullet-proof vests,

posture and swagger,

and capes & mask, too

(without phone booth, or even a nearby Verizon store)

on salad days

(the first order, anyway)

and disrobe

into invisibility

(perceptible to reflections only, and completely un-vampire like)

in mid-age,

as Zeitgeists don’t wear sheets

and come every day lately,

(surprise besties, and hard to pin down)

We visit,

these geists and I,

(butterfly-shaped dust motes subject to atmosphere)

as I smooth

cowl neck sweaters

in every size imaginable

–life falling away

in time-worn bits–

(that’s only fitting)

since drop-in visitors

are proven to be so predictably unexpected.