Unsettling insights
I.
Why I Gave Up Wine At 89
Anti-dizzy-spells
anti-falling anti-fear:
my stepping-out cane
hollow-question-mark-
curved-metal-shank-rubberized-
non-skid-tipped third foot.
Armed in self-defense
against the animus of
the inanimate…
Beset by waves of
vertigo… Who but fools or
drunks would drink to it?
II.
Morning Shave
This bag of skin
that keeps me in
wears ever
thinner
silent intimate
narrowing line
between outer
and inner
bruises bloody scrapes
rough eruptions:
tender whetstone face-
to-face with time’s
distorting mirror
till death-by-a-
thousand-nicks
lets outside in
inside out.
