“Push me higher, daddy!” and he does
sharing a scarce fragment
of a life surrendered,
watching the small one
fly in an arc
both predictable
and fun.

ESPN is waiting.
“Honey-do”s are waiting.
The mortgage payment is waiting.
Tom Clancy is waiting.

The tips of small sneakers
peek over the top bar
of the “play system”
that was once just a swingset.

His past was filled
with long nights of philosophizing
dancing
drinking
pretending to be weirder than he was
but now there is only this.

Swift as a late fall weekend flies
so goes his youth
and the memory of what he once was:
ambitious
fierce
bohemian
acquisitive
independent
and the last of these is furthest gone.

As small feet clatter up the slide
the wrong way
he knows that
whatever else
sustained his weary soul
on all those lost weekends
now
he needs this.

Now
this is what puts him right with the world