Shimmer

He had a late summer swagger

as he strutted down the street

in his shiny sharkskin suit. I thought

they had stopped making those but no

one told this slick suited swain.

His aviator sunglasses were

merely the frosting on an

otherwise unremarkable

purple shirt and tie cake.

His gait was in tune to the music

in his head.

It wasn’t reality to him as he

grooved along the sidewalk

passing the squares and rubes.

The party was in his mind and

he was the V.I.P. and no one else

was invited.

He strutted the way I imagined a

Cro-Magnon would have strutted

in a shimmery sharkskin suit.

His arms all a dangle, swaying

wildly as his bow legs did their

best to look smooth.

I imagined his thoughts and

his confidence in how good

he felt he looked while ignoring

the snickering condescension of

the pretty smoking girls.

His suit, that silly, shining suit

was the punch line to a joke no

one had wanted to hear. It was the

rim shot to a bad pun.

He went on his way rocking it

down the sidewalk till he was out

of view. Something inside me told

me he probably owned a boat and

there was a very sexy bikini girl waiting

for him.

I rubbed my expanding gut and sought

refuge in my cubicle to hide from the

eyes that might write a poem about

me.