“Old age is the most unexpected
of all the things that happen to a man.”
–Leon Trotsky.
“Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their
folly,
Their fear…”
–“East Coker,” by T.S. Eliot
1
In the mirror now,
what I see
reminds me
I won’t be here forever.
I don’t feel like
that face at all.
Inside it, I protest,
I’m quite different.
It’s somebody’s grandfather,
not me.
Whose grandfather is that?
I don’t want him.
2
Ah, memory, memory….
terrible,
to be losing
the words.
3
How do you get from here to there-
I mean, from where I am
to the nursing home?
In a snap of the fingers,
the blink of an eye.
Like my mother said,
as she was being loaded
into the ambulance,
It went so fast.
4
Life
a lazy buzz,
then
the quick sting.
A long inward breath,
then
the sudden
exhaling.
Biblioklept 