Old Man

He stops old friends
in the supermarket
and, when he starts to talk,

they stand there,
tapping their feet,
trapped in a doldrum
where no winds fill
their sails to move them on.

He has turned into
a babbling book of hours,
life’s moribund albatross
a warm scarf heavy
on his reluctant throat.

Caught in multiple mirrors
surrounding the barber’s chair,
his tongue is an open razor
constantly stropped.