They were no longer travellers without baggage. They were no longer twenty.
They’d both been around the block a bit and had suffered without the other. They’d both lost their way without the other.
Each had tried to find love with other people. But all that was now finished. – Guillaume Musso, Que serais-je sans toi?
The Old Man had selective hearing
and he didn’t even make the selection.
Last week the poor bastard had been walking
past an unwatched television selling Otezla.
No idea what it’s supposed to cure
but he had been ill for a couple of days
just listening to a litany of side effects
specified by the legal department.
His biggest hearing problem
was hearing shit
he wished he hadn’t.
The news, for sure.
For instance,
just the other day,
the old man had heard his wife
telling a neighbor
that her husband –
meaning him, who else –
was ‘still active in bed.’
Feeling not a little proud,
he did extra yardwork.
Felt so good about it, he told her.
Gratefully.
Tell everybody.
I like the sound of that, he told her.
Still active in bed. Sweet.
“That’s not what that means.” She said.
“What do you mean?” He wondered.
She has perfect recall, after all.
I was telling her how you are
tossin’ and turnin’ all night long
and wrapping yourself up
like a scrawny burrito in the comforter,
so it’s all I can do to get some sheet.
You know, ‘so active in bed,’ she said.
I can’t hear you, I told her.