Times are Changing

for bill gulick

I remember the good old days,
when movies didn’t have to show a boy and girl
in bed together to get people to go,
and the village was pulsing and alive—
I didn’t mind my fifth-floor walkup, because
the young ladies on the way up were so friendly,
and occasionally willing to go out bowling with me.
I suppose “friendly” means something a little different now,
doesn’t it?

I’ve watched for years the blood that careens through my polio-arm,
it seems so useless
but my hands are turning purple, now
the blood isn’t so contained.

I’ve watched the clock, too,
aware that the thing outlived it’s warranty about sixty years ago
when I’m feeling quippy and bold I tell my guests
that as long as it keeps ticking, I will. But who knows.
A clock can be fixed, in endless ways. But I
am meat. I will expire.

There is a small divot in the back of the skull,
a curve where spine runs into brain.
It is from that place, I believe, that memory falls out—
a slowly unwinding ribbon, pattern without logic
heaping behind me in a small pile on the floor.