A Convalescent Home for Retired Prophets
by Chase Dimock
As he parcels out his cocktail
of weekly pills, he says
he doesn’t resent the youth sitting
in the shade of trees he planted.
The bridge of his back was built
for footprints. There is satisfaction
in arthritis if you cherished
what you held on to for so long.
But he can’t help remembering
he once lived in a time when
desire could only travel as far
as a Burt Reynolds photo torn
from the TV Guide cover.
And he can’t help feeling
that he walks this bored utopia
like the doomed time traveler
whose machine can only go
forward and never back home
to tell his childhood self
where the yellow brick road ends.
Miracles of the future
are always prosaic
in another person’s present.
About the Author:
Chase Dimock teaches literature and writing in Los Angeles. He is the author of Sentinel Species (Stubborn Mule Press 2020) and the Managing Editor of As It Ought To Be Magazine. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Illinois and his scholarship and reviews in World Literature and LGBT Studies have appeared in College Literature, Western American Literature, Modern American Poetry, The Lambda Literary Review, and several academic anthologies.