He was the child his people said “told stories,”
meaning untruths; they clicked their tongues

and looked askance at the steady family
as if to confirm each feared the boy believed

in make believe, always
the hero of his adventures.

What hope for growing up
to be in love, in secret,

with the girl next door,
damsel in distress,

and he the masked rider
arriving in the nick of time

to save her and gallop away,
where else, into the sunset.

And now, the boy grown old, still believes,
and nights, takes out the pencil

and notebook small enough to tuck away
“so the wrong ones can’t find it.”¹

And he can right all wrongs.
The Good live happily ever after.

NOTES

^*Niall Williams. Time Of The Child. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024, p. 91.

¹Robert Frost. “Directive,” Robert Frost’s Poems: With an introduction and commentary by Louis Untermeyer, Washington Square Press, Pocket Books, 1971, pp. 270-272.