Robert Verdon, #424, Senior's Moment

cycling by a

familiar oval

an afternoon on the edge of history

moment

(similar words seen in a gallery

when you are new to sophisticattiness)

suddenly not knowing

where I was

senior’s moment at twenty-seven

(every year is new)

afternoon of gyroscopes

and grey flotsam, jetsam, and relativism

licking up the smiles of

babies boiled in their own tears

the sea going out out out

to the bloodied horizon

soon became clear

mental map awry

wrought such fear

I still recall

in plangent placidity

(reading about Stevie Smith

life made comfortable by the

option of suicide)

like an abacus you can count on

whirling through hyperspace