Old men walk funny with shadows and time eating at their heels.

Pediatric walkers, prostate exams, bend over, then most die.

They grow poor, leave their grocery list at home,

and forget their social security checks bank account numbers,

dwell on whether they wear dentures, uppers or lowers;

did they put their underwear on?

They can’t remember where they put down their glasses,

did they drop them on memory lane U.S. Route 66?

Was it watermelon wine or drive in movies they forgot their virginity in?

Hammered late evenings alone bottle up Mogen David wine madness

mixed with diet 7-Up, all moving parts squeak and crack in unison.

At night, they scream in silent dreams no one else hears,

they are flapping jaws sexual exchange with monarch butterfly wings.

Old men walk funny to the barbershop with gray hair, no hair;

sagging pants to physical therapy.

They pray for sunflowers above their graves,

a plot that bears their name with a poem.

They purchase their burial plots, pennies in a jar for years,

beggar’s price for a deceased wife.

Proverb:  in this end, everything that was long at one time is now passive,

or cut short. Ignore us old moonshiners, or poets that walk funny,

“they aren’t hurting anyone anymore.”

                                                                    ~ Michael Lee Johnson

                                                                               Itasca, IL, USA