In my minds eye, which
fortunately for it cannot hope
to see the mirror, I am sixteen.
No, cancel that, at sixteen I
was still chubby to be kind.
So let’s make me 18, even
if I had almost no hair thanks
to the U. S. Air Force, but I
was as fit as I would ever be.
No, that won’t work either,
for I was, I thought, in love
with a girl I’d marry and thirty
years later pay dearly
to unwind that decison.
So I’ll just have to be that
indeterminate younger age
that gives my mind its freedom
even if my aging body
tells the mirror a much
different story, one of trying
to just fall apart gracefully.