Nineseventeenpm

As the second hand ticks away my breaths a half-clad moon catches my eye. Was a time when I might've seen the ghost of half-eaten melon, but I'm older now, my thoughts less spry. Dark fear's hobgoblins were long since relegated to memory's chuckle drawer; open windows to warm nights ease my mind. I must shave and write. Neither seem as pressing as the once hormone-inducing prance in distant starlight, the hot exhalations of desert air. Nor do creased page corners to detective thrillers and t.v.'s prattle beckon hours with purpose. I'm the insouciant sentry at castles in retirement, the dragon minus annoying fire. Crows no longer pick eyes of the dead in picture frames on paneled walls. My shoes don't guardedly tread engineered woods of perfection. Aging brings a basset hound, graying around the nose, laying placidly on the rug. I'll get to tasks eventually. For now I commune with the moon, allowing my mind the idyll of a worn desk in a cluttered room and the dulcet laze in lyrics of night birds serenading summer's first hours. 6/19/18