Archive
01/08/10
Wintry Night
I've noticed, over the past too many years, That growing old and being cold go so hand in hand, Their gentlemen's agreement Must be a covenant struck between the devil and me, Not a mere corporeal fact of life.
These days, with the least wintry chill, I shiver like a leaf before a warm-breeze rainstorm, Can't concentrate on numbers, words, images, Forget everything I ever knew, minute to second, Submit to the bathroom, every half-hour or so.
"I just can't get warm" has become my mantra. Sometimes, I even begin to wonder If my body has succumbed to its own Ice Age. In public places, my bones embarrass me terribly, Knocking like an engine burning bad gas.
Could it be I'm a sea turtle that becomes lethargic When its tropical body is shocked by frigid water, An iguana that, in a freeze, loses consciousness, Falls from its tree, dies of hypothermia, An Alzheimer's victim who strays into the sub-zero?
But I know I'm not any of these, Rather just a lonely old man on a cold December night, Huddled around a bottle of wine As though it were a furnace whose heat I'm absorbing Before cuddling up with myself, under sleep's sheets.
01/08/10
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