if aging

if aging is the process of growing

less and less forgivable we

still have over half

our redemptions coming. how

will you use yours? like seeds

or matches? with

self-deprecating laughter or a face as unreadable as

Finnegans Wake in Braille? atoning

for the laudable sin of

another ten years of

unmastered French or

in apology

to children you raised so wrong they each

wrote books about it? anyway

my redemptions i use, immemorially, growing

backwards out of failed loves like

a chronic embryo ever-coming

full term in

wrong mothers. in fact today i fear i'll

use your last i forgive you being like this

born