Poem

The security guard reads Mitchner in the mornings
And in the evening wraps himself in haunting classical cords.
If I am lucky he will talk to me sometimes about once upon a times
And another life in a different uniform.

He shows me photographs of grandchildren he has never met
That are worn around the edges and yellowed
And sighs and says that these children are not children any more
But long since raised and grown.

Some one time fight over Christmas dinner had sent
The only daughter home angry, and with no mother,
No heart pulling against their pride and rage
She had never returned and nothing was forgiven.

He likes a drink, in an Irish way, and it shows in his face
And in the slight shake in his hand, the red in his eye
He never says lonely but it seeps from him in waves,
His own quiet dignity heavily tainted with regret.