Prompt Tuesdays: Wallace Stevens Poem . . .

Suddenly, he noticed something gleaming down in the bottom of the sink . . . down inside the disposal, actually, under that rubber, flappy thing. A glow, of sorts, lay beyond. He rested the scrubber against the side of the sink, dropping the glass with its clinging, concupiscent curds, and leaned forward.

It was a spyrograph. And colored pens. And his old rollerskates. Sitting there, untouched, as he remembered them.

Someone was yammering behind him. A voice he heard most nights. Something about spreadsheets and fuel injection and knee braces and insecticide. Something about the second half of that Kerouac book he never finished that sat on the living room shelf, dust blanketing the top edge of the pages. Or was it boxed up in the attic? Or had it been sold for pennies at some yard sale to make room for the annually-grouped Sunset magazine folios. Why hadn’t he finished it? Something about SAT tests, he seemed to remember. And car insurance. And wisdom teeth.

Was he really here now? Had he really wanted this? Had he already called the roller of big cigars? Was he that roller?

He reached deep into the drain, . . . grabbed it by the innards and pulled it inside out, the plumbing slopping out onto the linoleum in globbed intestinal piles . . . the small gear ringlets and pens from the spyograph clattering cleanly to the floor along with the skates, a tablet of Mad Libs, his first velcro wallet. Inside, an ASB card -- the laminated photo showing his hair parted in the middle, . . . his freckles darker, . . . more defined. And there was something in those eyes. Something forward looking. Something he had not seen in the mirror in a long, long time.
He strapped on his roller skates – a tad tight perhaps– stood, and rolled through the dining room, past the open front door, and onto the porch. The queen palms stood silhouetted against the phone lines in the twilight sky, a slightly humid and salty taste to the air.

There was an unread second half of a Kerouac book to find out there somewhere.