The Humility of Old Men
climbs in through the soles of their feet
might gout a big toe might turn
an ankle whose ligament got loosed up
years ago under a basket might wear
through the cartilage of a right knee
on its way to a hip’s ball and socket
and on from there it’ll flaccid
the groin’s passion gear find a pocket
of bowel to inflame it will infiltrate
the diaphragm and make camp in the heart
tighten the arteries stiffen the lungs
and steepen the hills it will ascend
and drill itself into the pulp of teeth
pull down the shoulders brittle the neck
cloud the eyes yellow the world humility
shrinks old men sometimes to a ripeness
a friends-with-death kind of translucence
lets us see the well-traveled child
who smiles at me from his hospital bed
✶✶✶✶
Jed Myers is author of Watching the Perseids (Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award), The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press), and four chapbooks, including Dark’s Channels (Iron Horse Literary Review Chapbook Award) and Love’s Test (winner, Grayson Books Chapbook Contest). Among recent recognitions, his poems have won The Briar Cliff Review’s Annual Poetry Contest, the Prime Number Magazine Award, The Southeast Review’s Gearhart Prize, and The Tishman Review’s Edna St. Vincent Millay Prize. Recent work appears in Rattle, Poetry Northwest, The American Journal of Poetry, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Southern Poetry Review, On the Seawall, Ruminate, and elsewhere. He’s poetry editor for Bracken.
