Next Mourning

For Randall

Strolling from Ram to Regal, from Regal to Ranger

I kick a tire. Man . . .I’d like a Hummer.

All those slacked jawed, grey suited or ball-capped

Hunting and bragging herd, are selves I can ignore.

Yet somehow, as I stroll through all these lots

And the saleswoman steers me to the Windstar!

ah but when I was a young buck --And poor, I’d crave

What all men crave; a bigger dick

Babes and a bigger dick. Now that I’m old, my needs

Are pitiful: I just want that saleswoman schmoozing that punk

To want me. I can’t believe-- she ignores me.

Was a time, I couldn’t keep my wick dry.

The chicks dug me daily and begged for more.

Ah but I bit the bullet, settled

--like dust

I can’t believe it--Now that damn sales chick is trying

to sell me a Volvo! and she pats my wife’s dog.

Forget it.

Cuddles and are going home.

I am a safe old man after all.

The last wild thing I did is in the long forgotten past

(NOT by my wife with the memory of a friggen elephant)

But—today I miss my boy away at school

And I wish I had my own dog. Maybe a bull Mastiff!

I look at my life and I am afraid

That it will get worse, that my stocks will plummet.

Like my sagging gray chest.

Pretty young things calling me Sir

and I awake to my father’s face in the mirror

Telling me I’m just another old man.

It was at Harold’s funeral last night

His stucco face in blank acceptance

All that Rogaine wasted on a dead man . . .I knew

It could have been me.

I beat him at cards last week, I was at the top of my game!

And now I think. . .when I die

I’ll go with cremation

I’ll be the big brass urn on the damn nightstand

Linda Lappin