It was late and wine had wet
an aridity he’d forgotten he had.
Yet he could feel the evening
arching above the house,
a good black dome. No ledges,
he realized, tempted him.
The once inviting abyss
was now just a view.

Sisyphus put another CD on
and stroked the cat.
His wife was in Bermuda
with her younger sister,
celebrating the death
of winter, and a debt paid.
He missed her, and he did not.

He’d been mixing Janis Joplin
with Brahms, accountable now
to no one. The lights
from some long desired festival
were not calling him.
No silent dog or calm ocean
made him fear the next moment.

But Sisyphus was amazed
how age sets in, how it just came
one day and stayed. And how far
away the past gets. His break
from the gods, just an episode now.

Tomorrow he’d brave the cold,
spireless mall, look for a gift.
He’d walk through the unappeasable
crowds as if some right thing
were findable and might be bestowed.