Age Before Beauty

Age is a gossip
who casts bad light
on mere distance.

Age is the Village Idiot,
menacing you
with his memory stick.

Age is the vampire of energy,
and he leaves you two goggles
into your hollowed husk.

Today, it suits me to spare
my hot and bothered charges
from all of my old business.

Today, it suit me to make
little of what I was and
nothing of what I will be.

Age becomes one
of many useful devices
for exposition.

I demand silence,
and I pretend that
I have been obeyed.

I clear my throat, and
I say, "Once, when I was
even younger than I am now..."