Periodically, he will run into former
acquaintances who will say, “Oh my,
I never would have recognized you.”
He would like them to have lied and
said instead, “Oh my, you haven’t
changed a bit,” but what they said
just popped out, so he assumes it
was exactly what they were perceiv-
ing at the moment, but that begs the
question, were they perceiving object-
ively an accurate image from the past
in contrast to what they were perceiv-
ing objectively at the moment or is
it all subjectivity based on previous
desires or what they used to think he
looked like back in the day as they
now say or had he really changed all
that much — hair lost, weight gained?
They didn’t see the wonder of the poem
he read that morning, which filled his
head and heart and transported him back
in time to when his former acquaintances
certainly would have recognized him, at
least the surface stuff.