There never was anyone like Ali between the ropes or facing the public. In the ring and out

World War II was over but still fresh in the minds of folks who li… in Bill’s hometown in the Ozarks. Independence Day was important. It called for a celebration.

This morning I woke up early feelin’ good, feelin’ the way I felt 50 years ago, no aches, no pains, can’t wait to shower, hop on the El, go back to work,

They’re usually poor people, sometimes considered the flotsam of society, always in the way at the grocery store,

You think it’s easy, embalming bodies in these nightmares I have every night, bodies a vulture

We are to each other now many decades later what we were the day we got married, a couple at the kitchen table on

Noon meal at the nursing home and everyone is there chowing down and talking. Before dessert is served there’s an announcement to be made

If the greatest of these is charit… then tell me again why it’s gauche if this young man in a booth at a bar

I told my guest it’s just a poem doesn’t mean a thing a salad tossed with colors bright

Two men tall, one from here and one from there, in raincoats at a bus stop,

I saw Al once a month for 30 years, maybe more, doing business together. He retired to hunt bear in Alaska, hook Tarpon

Bill’s been seeing a therapist for years trying to get his life on track but all he talks about is his many regrets in a life

So this Mick on the next stool, who’s as serious as Yeats but looks like Wilde, stares at me, with eyes crossed,

A long time ago you bothered him somehow. Since then he has bothered you back. You don’t know how or