94.

Something rebarbative lives in this life

The mirror gets harder with each year

And all the flaws on its surface and mine

Become more apparent in the illusion

Of time. I never thought I would be young

For ever but did, not knowing how bones

Age and faces thicken, like hands, and necks

Or how the weariness of the brain sets in

And the mouth tastes like cigarettes in beer

Floating, when people used to smoke and use

Bottles as ashtrays. But age

Is not a simile: it just is, and the grave

Awaits and aches lost love. And the earth,

Error, nags at the waste I have become.