It happens one night that the hurdles champ
of Loyola, Class of ’58, finds himself on the lawns
of a gentleman’s club—shoulders stooped,
bandy-kneed, unable to hear or digest sugar.
It happens his wife dies first, and his children
frequently think, Hypothetically, if dad had gone
first, mum would still have had things to do.
It happens that the man who threw the best parties,
the first person in town with disco lights,
psychedelic shirts, the works—now finds it difficult
to smile. And as if to prove this unhappy man
once had the capacity to dance, the moon skids over
his spectacles, does a little jig on the wintry expanse
of his head, eclipsing for a moment this night,
these stars, all the borrowed future ahead.
Tishani Doshi is the author of The Pleasure Seekers.
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