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.