The Man Who Began to Verb
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| @YevheniiDubrovski |
The Man Who Began to Verb
He used to mountain the mornings,
stride the streets, and thunder up the stairs,
his heart a red-throated engine,
his blood a brass band in the squares.
Now he carefuls every staircase,
handrails the banister, slow-walks the hall,
and pockets his keys like a miser
who suspects the world might shoplift them all.
His knees have begun their committee work,
each joint a parliament of old complaints;
his hips weather the weather in private,
his back hieroglyphs its ortho restraints.
He spectacles the menu, squints at the bill,
and glasses the clock as if time might explain
why yesterday’s boy still inhabits his mirror
while today’s man is mostly a weather vane.
His hair has snowed without asking permission,
his temples have wintered, his waist has run amok;
his belt has been notched into smaller ambitions,
his shirts refuse to remain safely tucked.
Yet love still brightens him, quick as a match;
he winks at his wife, who has seen every goof.
She honey-moons his ridiculous moods,
then mothers his pillbox and asks him for proof.
He grumbles, he grandfathers, he fogeys the room,
then laughs at himself till the windows shake;
he cannot outrun the darkening calendar,
but he can still moonlight as somebody’s rake.
At night, when the house has gone hush as a chapel,
he starfishes wide in the bed’s familiar sea,
while his rabbiting heart, that old red mischief,
keeps thumping out not yet, not yet, not me.
And morning will find him, creaking but game,
buttonholing daylight, slow and steady is fine;
for age may noun him into a cautionary tale,
but he’ll verb till the end of the line.
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I really love how you made his actions so clear with the clever verbing, and with that ending really made me smile... may he never noun.
ReplyDelete"Now he carefuls every staircase,
ReplyDeletehandrails the banister," That is some very clever truthspoke!