Old Man in a Rocker

JosÉ Angel Araguz

The fantasies of others are of little interest.
This painting where an old man in a rocker
stares into the sun from his porch

does little for my own unrest,
nor does it change the words I hear
in fantasy. Others are of little interest.

I write: In the evening’s last light, I’m lost—
it too is less a person, more a color.
Staring into the sun from this porch,

the evening is what the painter’s left for us
to guess at. In my eyes, over and over,
are fantasies of other evenings. My interest

in what may have happened stirs summers
inside me: the smell of grass, and no father
staring at the son I am. Soft peach

upon the face; not face but canvas.
Son, God has grown tired of us, I hear
again. We’re fantasies, of little interest
except as stairs rising into the sun.