Something tells him he is off-limits
When he visits the old establishment, maybe for mail.
He still has his key, but it has a slippery feel.
A colleague gives him a startled look, an over-emphatic Hi!
Both act almost as if they’d seen a ghost,
Both know they would rather meet on the street
Than in this particular environment, why
Meeting like this is a kind of misstep.
They wave each other off like a gardener and a bee.
Leaving, he stumbles a little, out of deference,
Hoping he won’t run into any Young Turks
(Conversation with them is impossible,
    All idiom and no style).
Meanwhile he keeps coming back to the shop,
A distant cousin, a visitor, a janitor
Whose name is growing harder to recollect.
The word ‘posthumous’ pops into his head!
Has he joined some sect of the living dead?
After all, he’s not some Supreme Court Judge
With unlimited tenure.
Besides, he cherishes his own retirement
And is working at it full time, like a work of art,
Hoping it’s nothing as foolish as a hobby
Or as sentimental as a Purple Heart.