no if I've learned anything

I will not

when you call

I will however

a short

documentary

shame on you

for watching

Old mister young thinks
society's it's own
punishment

old mister young's
been married
at least
before the war
old misses young
lost in department stores
gets so frustrated
old mister young
reminds her young
he repeats young

old mister young was watching
the ducks at the cemetery
sitting in his car with the radio on
and the heat off
an old hairless man who
in the eyes of the church
was never young

Old Mister Young
has never seen
the ocean not
even the Hudson
dry is the skin
stretched
around his skull
the hairless skin
bunched up
where his neck
meets his collar
summer he thinks
as he shovels
and suddenly
backs the Cadillac
into a fire hydrant
see how the water
really beads on its
wind burnt hood
its ever chapped fenders

old mister young protests

winter's come early

stands at the end

of his driveway

with his shovel sweating

all's white and nowhere's

plowed 'cept that road

back up behind

potter's field

where the dogs bark

day and night

I fear God
because I can't help feeling
I'm being watched