Realized today
that I now walk
with a limp,
left leg falling
slightly behind,
depending more
on the right
to move, to keep
moving
at all.
My left shoulder
is also ruined,
unable to lift my arm
above the shoulder
unless, of course,
emergency demands
such an action
to survive.
Funny, then,
that an old body
can still produce
a pimple
on the forehead.
Funnier, still,
that such a young body
can find church
in the eyes of strangers,
the ones who move
like sludged pistons
inside otherwise ignorant
cylinders, working
without understanding
the machine.
Some people are paid
to solve
these types of problems;
others paint pictures
of field cars,
with mice nesting
in the exhaust manifold.
THE FILTERED PRESS 