The Old Man in the Plaza

I’m an old man now
sitting like a movie extra
in a blocked-off street faire 
full of sunscreen tents and outdoor seating,
bales of hay imposing safe distance barriers against Covid,
reading, as it happens, Salmon Rushdie’s story,
“The Old Man in the Piazza.”  
 
I’m delighted by the phrase, 
“the vanity of certainty”
a vanity the old man in the story falls into, 
unexpectedly, because he has led 
a life disciplined by hermetical practice. 
 
I read for ecstatic flights
swept out of myself while sitting in a chair,
in a coy town surrounded by a culture 
of cutthroats and cannibals. 
 
The old man in the story, it turns out,
cannot escape his buried longing to belong.
Sensing this the villagers exalt him
make him a judge, so strong
is their desire to be told what to do.
They honor him so much 
he begins to believe he is truly wise and,
worse, useful. The recluse becomes another 
ordinary person, so compromised 
we turn away from him, 
recognizing ourselves.
 
I look up from the story and careless
laughing teenage girls
step to the curb from the puddled street
rippling a reflection of the old bank 
(now a pastry shop with faux Doric columns). 
The gorgeous insolence 
in their laughter makes the world
shimmer like the apparition it is.
Splash through the puddles, girls, shake 
the shimmering illusions of this world 
relish the thrill of walking down the street.