Old men walk funny with shadows eating at their heels.Pediatric walkers, prostate exams, bend over, and then mostly die.They grow poor, leave their grocery list at home, and forget their bank account numbers,dwell whether they wear dentures, uppers or lowers; did they put their underwear on.They cannot remember where they put their glasses, did they drop their memory on route to some place.They package old bones, dry dreams; testicles empty, and giggle choking on past sexual fantasies.Mogen David madness accesses 100 BC concord wine, all remaining parts sit down-waves go through their brain as if broken cylinders float undefined travelers.At night, they scream in silent dreams no one else hears, they are flapping of monarch butterfly wings.Old men walk funny to the barbershop with gray hair, no hair; sagging pants to physical therapy.They pray for sunflowers above their graves, a plot that bears their name.They purchase their plots, pennies on a dollar, beggar’s price a deceased wife.Proverb:  in the end, everything that is long at one time is now passive, cut short.Ignore those old moonshiners that walk funny, “they aren’t hurting anyone anymore.”

by Michael Lee Johnson