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Aging
The Extra Year: Selected Poems
— from “Almost Done” | My wife has taken Pepper to the vet this morning. She is losing her hair, doesn’t like her food, has growths on her skin, moves slowly after eighty-four dog years.
October 2019The Middle-Aged Joggers
We gather beside the pond in great ragged flocks, like birds. We run. Knees and backs stiff, we run — along the available routes, the ones before us, the paved and unpaved paths.
October 2019Unexpected Things
A notorious buffoon is elected to the highest office in the land. He lies, cheats, connives, and endangers the planet and all its inhabitants. Did anyone expect this?
September 2019
The Happy Vertex
(As Explained In A Letter To My Son)
You see that the cruelty of the Happy Vertex is its fleeting nature. Line A plunges downward, line B eventually plateaus, and before you know it, the distractions take over, and you’re thinking about girls, or you take a brief but intense interest in Mazda Miatas. Soon you’ll think about money, nothing but money.
July 2019
Holy The Body
I’ve thought so little of you that now / you seek your revenge in the grinding / of kneecaps, the tightening of hamstrings, / loss of elasticity, the skin. So long neglected, / you weren’t even an afterthought.
July 2019The Explorer
But he’s not getting caught on this trip, he says. He’s packing his stash wrapped in tinfoil, sprayed with deer urine, and taped to the inside of his engine, as per a YouTube tutorial.
June 2019
Our Dad Got Old
Our dad got old. He moved in with his brother. We had all left home because we were supposed to figure out what we were good at and do it. He’d taught us that.
June 2019Survivor
Do I need to go into what turns an eleven-year-old into such a stoic: embarrassed to be sentimental, determined to be detached?
November 2018
Tea Time
At 3 AM my eyes snap open. It’s been about fifteen hours since my last fix, and I’m already edging into withdrawal. With a sigh I get out of bed and head down to the basement to make a cup of tea from my store of opium poppies.
October 2018
What Are The Odds
That this trip isn’t the stupidest thing he’ll ever do / That they won’t drive one mile before she asks, Where are we going? three times / That she’ll ask why can’t she drive anymore
October 2018
