Westcott Variety By Jasen Sousa (Elegy Poem for Thomas Westcott)

Westcott Variety By Jasen Sousa 

This man old, tries not to notice 

my translucent self trudge 

inside smudged store windows.  

I prepare to lock-up for the last time tonight 

as I have all the nights before.  An unbalanced clock 

has not told the correct hour and minute

since the last time my friend and I sat on a seesaw 

within an orbiting world.  Magnetic sounds that palpitate within shadows

have been uninteresting since fear left during adolescence.  

My arthritic hands are unable to reach 

into my pockets and pull out reoccurring laughs 

from the glory of our youth.  My apron dusts linoleum tiles

as I totter and struggle to box-up remaining items from the convenience 

store I have worked in most of my life.  Well-dressed manikins 

roam the streets without much to say as they pass

by my store like cargo ships on the night sea.  

This man old, and has buried 

everything and everyone

I have ever known in my life.  Blisters

and calluses cover my fingers in layers

like beds that have been made over and over

again without changing the sheets.  It is not easy

to give up your ghost.  Unwanted thoughts attach 

to brains like moss staggering up the sides

of apartment buildings.  The city I was once familiar with

sticks onto my ribs like ice in the deepest corner 

of the freezer.  Customers who have moved

into my neighborhood and shop in my store dissolve 

from memory quicker than vibrations from pennies flung

into my gratitude cup.  

This man old, like the sign outside my store,

like my eyelids, which appear like teabags 

squeezed around a spoon by its string.  I wonder, if customers

notice the picture of my friend hanging on the wall 

dressed in his baseball uniform, and the scar 

on his arm that he used to tell people he got 

from wrestling a shark?  I wonder, if customers 

realize that my friend walked around every inch 

of their city looking for the happiness 

which seems to come so easy to them?

This man old, and has witnessed

forever change into precious moments.  I have a difficult time

recalling my friend’s jubilant laugh and personality 

which let everyone in the proximity know he had arrived.  I turn

off the lights and wonder what is worse; growing old 

and not recognizing anything or anyone, 

or dying young without discovering

the rest of life’s cruel introductions?