Holidays with others

 
I remember childhood holidays:
a borrowed bike bigger than I knew
roads out the back of town, flat roads
I gloried in the flatness of those roads

And wheeled about like an albatross, unhindered
by the sticking points of hills back home
unhindered by weight of gravity
or memory of weight of home

I remember food as much as you could eat (and more)
please yourself it's there to be enjoyed
frivololty of presents with flashing lights
the fun of it; severity a dying recollection

The big black fat stressless cat
the 28 pound cat I weighed, so big
he might have eaten the cat we didn't have;
I liked him still and his happy calm.