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