And after that
they went home they said
He looks older than we do;
he has deep lines
that cut in on either side,
that look like they are going to meet somewhere
and carve him up
like that jig saw on a stand for the customers to try
He’s really not a person they said
He’s a kind of abstraction
a half assed memory of what perhaps he was
and thinks
he still may be
But what they thought was
How pretentious can one be
spouting words like oil from a well
and telling tales of another time
as if that will smooth those lines
like a botulinum injection would
and reverse the years