A physical trainer at the gym

once took me aside

& began asking me

a lot of philosophical questions.

Like, ‘How much could I dead lift?’

I don’t know, friend, I said

 “I guess, we’ll have to continue this conversation at a gym … in Heaven.”

& then in a twinkling

I was gone.

… Never to return. 

ii.

(Though I would continue paying monthly fees for another fourteen years.)