Once In A Lifetime

Justin Vicari

Waves are swamping my desk.
Cynthia’s back from maternity leave,
showing off her new baby.  The office swims
with goo-goo chat -- all around me
the women chitter and twitter
while a song on my radio takes me back
to stoned college parties.  A dance hit about drowning.
Ten years deeper into debt and this hectic job --
a few friends dead -- I almost cringe to hear it.
I can’t defend this private refuge in radio
while Cynthia holds squalling life in her arms
and the world demands to be looked in the eye.

Am I being dragged into the hereafter?
How can I tell them I once held a moonlit hand,
once whirled among the dancers?  Those
frayed ends never wove together, never
led anywhere.  Anyway, they never ask.
Cynthia talks about her labor only
with the women who have also given birth.  Yes,
this song is my only contribution, their conversation
slicing through its lyrics like a DJ’s remix
splicing in the world -- like a baby stumbling through his first lessons
in how to take a fall, how to stand again.  Given a choice,
I’d say, keep crawling close to the ground
through this onionskin papoose of a world.