The stain ran a trail down his pleated
Cords, but I didn’t quite register the fact,
And only later realized that it meant
He’d pissed himself. A small, neat man,

Thin and red-faced with blotchy skin, he’d
Never said hello or even given me that tilt
Of the head professors sometimes did,
But rather stared at the hallway floor

As he scurried by on legs so bowed
Their contours showed right through
His pants. Forty years later he comes
To me in the full-length mirror, where

He’s abided time and death, unchanged —
But now I see clearly, in his eyes, the rage.