POEM
For growing old
For filling –rather spilling—out
For the karma of going unnoticed
For a rate of success with men since age 48 of:
record negative double digits
…and still falling (oh my god)
For no one lining up outside my door
or stuffing my mailbox
not even ex-lovers offering nostalgic idolatry
For sometimes imagining I am easily dismissed, forgotten
and the embarrassment it still can cause me
For my imperfectionnnnzzzzzzzzzzzz
My insistence on a different route
arrogance in choosing solitude
in reality a vacuum of options
anywhere in the vicinity of acceptable
For the former sadness at the reiterative non- applause
the frigid silence bounced back by millionszzzzzzzz
that I am as yet secretly un-indifferent to
…for about 5, long, minutes
For having been blind
having been deaf
having done nothing
yet being blessed
by a shower of manna, protection, benevolence
(subject –I know– to change without prior notice)
For jaywalking every chance I get
For the now terminal impossibility
of looking buffed and glossy
yet going all out more than ever
talking the talk, strutting my stuff
out-imagining the famously oblivious
happily making do with no patronage from the important
For having thrown almost no dinners
held almost no parties
though giving gifts aplenty apropos of no occasion
to compensate for her lack of savoir faire
and historically limited budget
for writing awful poems that all sound alike
for inheriting too many of mother’s bad features
and not enough of father’s good ones
For seeing what I see
feeling what I feel
knowing what I cannot help but know
and in the past –surely in the future too–
in consequence shunned
leastwise
politely left alone.
…I’ve forgiven myself
accept myself now
inclusive of all the above
notwithstanding what I’ve forgotten or left out.
