having been aged slowly for days I
once could have counted but now beyond
counting       I have grown grey chested and
barren atop my crown       throughout taut
with age       stretched and somehow un-wizened

      I have beaten out Jesus at least
or matched him now in time bipedal
here on the dirt ball here with sandals
wrapped around my socks I have become

some reflection of my forefathers
      faithfulness arrives wrapped in a bow
I stoop upon my stoop to pick it
up       inside its hollow are Werther’s
Originals strewn with a crow hand

      the hand of my dear slumped grandmother
for whom I have been a frozen kid
kicking into the hole the golf ball
while she       bold teammate       stood guard above

for years       but now her face cranes toward
the carpet       her feet shuffle in gnarls
and I’m fading from her mind and eye
      some full-sized stranger in a party
hat       some voice in a wire reaching out