I was beginning to think
my eye isn’t tired, but ptosic,
and the perennial pain
in my back isn’t incipient arthritis,
but metastatic nodules.
They say that life
is more of a picnic when you’re hopeful,
but I, I guess, am one perpetual cynic, and will be,
even were my life eternal. So take what they say
like it’s a grain of salt,
like it is that pillar that Lot’s wife turned into,
when she forgot that it is the future
that is most important;
and whatever else they assert is an actual statistic;
that unless you’re a million people
don’t count on its accuracy.
And even if you get invited to that picnic
make sure that those pretty delicacies are not tainted.
Ptosis: muscular weakness in eyelid, so eye
is partially closed