Sixty-One

Fifty was poignant, heavy pear departs the tree and the poem a sigh between branch and mulch. But no more. Another decade, I’m all song and scruff, the mind’s hot wire threading joint to joint. I’ll tell you straight out what I think, no sweetener. Nor has Aphrodite left me collapsed in a stairwell and don’t you father-flirt me, girl. This morning the world unbelts her robe, rose fleshed and randy. I like the rats that skitter under the subway’s hot rails. The little black dog who’s afraid of no one, not even the dope dealer’s pitbulls. Montaigne said sickness is God’s way of weaning us from life but I don’t think yet. I like the way soul clings to gristle like a newspaper wrapped around a light pole in a storm. Death’s a street away walking parallel and at my pace. He gets a nod.