The Man at the Table

The tattered notebook is waiting
on the kitchen table
beneath the dusty yellow light.
So he gets out the old Hoover
and vacuums the living room.

The cats scatter, one under the bed,
the other hiding behind the end table,
both of them knowing
something he doesn't.
The carpet looks no different
when he's finished.

He puts the Hoover away,
gets himself a cup of coffee
and sits down.
He's been meaning to write
for twenty years.

He's got a hundred reasons
why a man can't begin:
the hours, the years,
the way his friends laughed
when he said he wanted
to be something, leave his mark
on the world,
scratch out a small legacy.

The friends are gone now,
but some nights
he can still hear them.

"You're too sentimental."

The coffee goes cold.
The page stays white.
There's a man inside him
he's never had the nerve to meet,
a man who has something to say,
a man who might turn out
to be a fraud, an idiot,
or somebody, a vagabond,
worth listening to.

He looks around the room,
eyes the closet where the vacuum is.
The cats slink back.
He picks up the pen.
Writes: We must treat fear
like a mouse with a top hat.
He gets up, bows,
and does a slow waltz
with his shadow.