I wonder, sometimes,
what it might have been like,
growing up
then and there.
Did he play run and hide
or horseshoes
or any other sorts of streetcorner games?
What kind of friends
did he make
while young and having hair?
I don’t know at all
what it might have been like
to wear that skin he was in.

It’s too late now.
I can’t just ask him, of course.
He’s too far from the answers
of that life he once led
and besides, there’s not much you can do
to describe a thing
when you’ve never experienced the alternative.

I can only extrapolate
what it was like
in those golden days
during that silver age
of bronzer and CopperTone
unless I can find anyone left
in that old neighborhood
who remembers papa.