He Remembers His Life as a Man

A mild day, the rain so light

there was no need for an umbrella.

I took my usual route.

Swallows wheeled in the mist.

There was someone I might

have envied but didn’t.

The meanness I’d shown, I forgave.

For once my knees did not ache.

At the end of the street,

in the rubble strewn yard,

there were yellow roses—

lavish, open, fresh.

The John and Mim Poems is a portrait of a marriage and Miriam Levine’s gift to you.