We mark this clarity as a check

on a paper calendar square

to reminisce on when

the bathtub water grows cold.

We seat a thousand oddities

among the virulent autumn leaves

which remind us of death.

An old man scoots a walker

into his last diner. Watch how

gravity desperately claws us

toward the dirt, how it melts us.

We seep into every notch

of a warm leather armchair

as the ambuscade of old age

greets us like a warm sunset.

jcb