Age

Age

The trains of thought are derailing
Someone must have switched the tracks
In the night like a light switch 
The robbers lay in wait in the ditches
Drooling thinking of earrings rings watches
Bright things are the first to be taken

Now the principle dates are beginning 
To tremble like the dot of blood on yolks
Old friends met for the first time again
The print growing larger like something
Coming towards him through the dark
The aides in his ears whisper what they hear

A plate made up for him at the holiday table
The roast cut into cubes the bread buttered
One of his grandsons the one with the cowlick
Watches him struggle in vain with the peas
He bats him away with a single wink 
The boy stares down at his plate red-faced

Only in his dreams is he young again
Torquing through flimsy arm tackles
Though the goal line seems always to elude him
On their first date he’s so nervous he 
Misses his mouth with his fork
Nearly broke her finger forcing the ring

To wake is to age decades in an instant
The derailed train is squeezed between trees
They’re coming through the cars with flour sacks
Everyone is coughing up gold and silver phlegm
He’s trying to remember what he was
Thinking of when they come up to him