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.
Copyright Credit: Doug Anderson, “Sixty One” from Cry Wolf. Copyright © 2008 by Doug Anderson. Reprinted by permission of Azul Editions.
Source: Poetry (Poetry Foundation, 2004)