Delights & Shadows

by Ted Kooser

Walking on Tiptoe Long ago we quit lifting our heels like the others — horse, dog, and tiger — though we thrill to their speed as they flee. Even the mouse bearing the great weight of a nugget of dog food is enviably graceful. There is little spring to our walk, we are so burdened with responsibility, all of the disciplinary actions that have fallen to us, the punishments, the killings, and all with our feet bound stiff in the skins of the conquered. But sometimes, in the early hours, we can feel what it must have been like to be one of them, up on our toes, stealing past doors where others are sleeping, and suddenly able to see in the dark.

Tattoo What once was meant to be a statement — a dripping dagger held in the fist of a shuddering heart — is now just a bruise on a bony old shoulder, the spot where vanity once punched him hard and the ache lingered on. He looks like someone you had to reckon with, strong as a stallion, fast and ornery, but on this chilly morning, as he walks between the tables at a yard sale with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt rolled up to show us who he was, he is only another old man, picking up broken tools and putting them back, his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

They came this afternoon to say goodbye, but now they keep saying hello and hello, peering into each other’s faces, slow to let go of each other’s hands.

“But surely there’s medicine,” I said, and she said, “Maybe so.” And then there was a pause that filled the room.

Casting Reels You find them at flea markets and yard sales, old South Bends and Pfluegers, with fancy engraving, knurled knobs and pearl handles, spooled with the fraying line of long stories snarled into silence, not just exaggerated tales of walleyes, bass, and catfish, but of hardworking men who on Saturdays sought out the solace of lakes, who on weekdays at desks, or standing on ladders, or next to clattering machines played out their youth and strength waiting to set the hook, and then, in their sixties, felt the line go slack and reeled the years back empty. They are the ones who got away.

It seems a part of growing old is no longer to have five subjects, each demanding an equal share of attention, set apart by brown cardboard dividers, but instead to stand in a drugstore and hang on to one subject a little too long, like this notebook you weigh in your hands, passing your fingers over its surfaces as if it were some kind of wonder.

Today, from a distance, I saw you walking away,