i.
my dad always
said that your mind
doesn’t age,
and then one day
an old man stares
back at you
from the mirror.
your whole life
felt, in retrospect,
as a single step
over a paved
drainage ditch
with odd bits
of trash and debris
clinging
to its edges.
ii.
looking back,
a world
of faces from my past
have merged,
pixelated
by time
and inattention
to detail
with only tiny
fragments remaining.
a marketplace
of memories
devoid of color,
the finer grains
of context
lost on my inner child.
