That boy was always in the land of make believe, 

mimicking whatever he saw – 

road sweeper or priest at the altar, 

sometimes the dispensary doctor, a guardian of the law,

the soldier on parade on Easter Sunday morning. 

Once he saw an accident on the street,

the fall from a bike that cut the rider’s lip,

broke one of his teeth and left blood where it happened 

like the blood on Christ’s feet,

and a stain on the ground  for the rest of the week.  

That boy with freckled face, sleepwalker at night, 

always in a place of magical thinking, a world 

he would never relinquish, even when halfway through life, 

even now in the years of catching his breath 

when his name appears with date of birth.