So easy to empty yourself out nowadays,
to fail to re-enter your past, when
you’re just a few weeks from the last loss

or the next. There are times I imagine I sympathize
with strangers – that quickly the losses now slip past –
not unnoticed or unmeasured, certainly not

unremarked, but now more resembling
a nagging pain we learn to ignore. This is not
courage or wisdom or even selfishness. This is how

old age comes to erode intensity, how
it wears away the sharper edges. This is where
the ripples start to widen. But not today.

Today, this is, again, that early and unfamiliar loss,
the one that arrives unannounced, the one
I declare is undeserved. This is the private heresy

that creates a new chasm in my world. Today,
I remember how a loss could hurt so deeply,
as it did back then, when you and I were young.

Mike Forecki lived and practiced law in Eau Claire for more than 30 years. He now divides his time between the St Croix River on the Western edge of Wisconsin and Florida’s Southern Gulf Coast. For more by Mike, see his Volume One author page.