Outcomes / Poetry by Dennis Wilken

Never say never
Never say, I’ll never
Be too withdrawn
And alone
Like my poor bachelor
Uncle Bill;

Presto, fifty years pass,
Some very hard years,
Breaking boundaries
Inside your head
And now, you sit,

Often alone,
Reading travel books,
Maybe some of the same ones
Old Bill dreamed over
As he waited to die;

We often become
What we fear,
Or loathe,
At least as often as we become
Who we always wished to be
And sometimes, all too briefly,
Were.



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Dennis P. Wilken is a veteran journalist and former writer for Cincinnati Magazine. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Word Riot and Madswirl. He lives in Seattle, Washington.