Rodak's Writings: a Painful Poem

If, Not When

If only I can

get you wondering

what it would be like,

despite all the speed bumps

and Do Not Enter signs

on this one-way toll road,

I will have won

some kind of dubious

and Pyrrhic victory.

Rodak's Writings: An End-Stage Poem

And Suddenly You’re Old

The records of your fuck-hungry youth

don’t spin anymore.

The eyes of young women you encounter

are the eyes of an alien race:

They make a brief taxonomic evaluation

then quickly move on.

The eyes of old women demand payment

of some long-standing debt,

for which you no longer have the currency

to satisfy.

You have watched your father --

who taught you how to swing a bat,

who taught you the words you now employ

to curse your failing body -- die without warning,

on a day that began as routine.

Then time becomes a crushed and soggy tissue,

disgusting, no longer of use.

And suddenly you’re old.