It’s a strange looking coda
Unattached with no anchoring
Beached upon an unnamed border
Neither here nor there, hankering
To be identified, indeed imprisoned
By what it almost is, but clearly isn’t.
It’s a shadow bathed in light
A euphonic echo, second sight,
A debt acknowledged but unpaid
Till Tuesday settles this small raid
Upon the dawn’s futility.
Prompted by this moment of fragility
It, glancing, makes appraisal of itself
And thinking more perhaps of health than wealth
It almost disapproves of the hyphened charade
But strides ahead with its preloved parade.
After all, maybe perhaps tomorrow
We’ll be defined by what we bring, not what we borrow.
¹ A February 2026 film review described a character as “Willy Loman-esque”
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Stephen A. Linstead
Image: “Death of a Salesman”. Nationaal Archief, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image: “Death of a Salesman”. Nationaal Archief, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons