Me In Twenty-five Years

That’s Me in Twenty-five Years
with the beer and Bloody Mary
on the oak bar in front of him.
It’s only noon on Monday
in a tavern in Nowhere, Michigan
and Me in Twenty-five Years
drinks alone beside his list of whys.

And Me at Twenty-nine sits
a corner booth with his wife,
telling her he doesn’t buy
into the idea of a fated life, rather
one of infinite possible outcomes
to any hypothesis posed.

But Me in Twenty-five Years
must believe in some kind of Fate
because he smiles at a girl half his age
tending to his next Bloody Mary
and says, “Darling, is it a coincidence
that we’d both be here at noon
on Monday in the summer heat?”

It’s a rhetorical question, of course.
I’ve always loved rhetoric.