To A Narrative Poet

You tell stories
as if you were always young
and watching silently with eyes wide.

What you see portends.
It's not friendly, the hearth is cold
but you survive it.

Those who would have loved you
are late and you wait in vain.
What would warm you is just miles away
and you can't reach it,

failure in technicolor where it's always
late afternoon and your neighbors
are sitting on their porches chewing.

I have passed through
those simple lonely times and watched
things I wouldn't have imagined come to pass.

Promises now
are everywhere
on disembodied lips.