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Taking Stock

Ten toes, ten fingers, nose, mouth, pie plate ears

Two legs, two arms, a chin no stranger to

Self-admonished “up”’s, salt n’ pepper-jowled

Aspect, beetle browed in bad light, good side

Diametrically neither left nor right

But adrift in the watery middle

Distance, watery eyes sloshing above

The high water line of a nocturnal

Bladder up all night with the yips, wisdom

Teeth toeing the fault lines of high voltage

Trigeminal nerves, toes one step ahead

Of galumphing ocher fungi, pink eye

Loitering in the lobby for contact

Wearers everywhere, glasses like watching

Puritans scowling through wavy tavern  

Windows, desertification claiming

What’s left of the once verdant rain forest 

That anchored rich loamy thoughts in my head

Kept them from washing away in torrents

Of time, leaving a barren dome that won't

hold soil but might look good in a rakish

hat, consolation a warm ear flap cap

I wear more and more these days looks be damned. 

Did I mention thoughts of rogue cells skulking

Down back alleys, haunting waterfront dives

That spider major organs, keep me up

At night when I do most of my reading

Books by men of a certain age, tie-less

On the jackets, leaf peeper blazers like

Some character in a book, a man in

Autumn wandering shaggy mounds of reds

And yellows, small j of a forehead crease

Suggesting brooding contemplation when

In fact he hasn’t a thought in his head

Beneath a deep blue sky, heading homeward.