An Old Marc Antony in an Ybor City Bar

An old Mark Anthony in an Ybor City Bar



I'm dying, Egypt. Cleo,
I haven't been stabbed or poisoned.
I have three food tasters. Two died.
One lived. I drank the wine
of the one who was alive.
I'm dying, Egypt.
The killer is not an army, but old age.
Cleo, it is your breasts, small waist,
red hair that makes me want to live. Cleo,
I'm too self-conscious about being a ruin
of time, the skin has started to drop
on my jawbones, my neck skin sags, I have
a new wrinkle that spirals between my lips
and nose, yes, too self conscious of my ugliness
to confess to someone as young, as beautiful,
as sensual as you that I desire to lick
your body with my aged tongue.
Cleo, I get tongue-tied when we meet
discuss politics, not tongue-tied about politics,
for I can talk and talk about the government.
But I didn't come here to talk about politics.
But as I verbalize in a verbose
and prolix manner,I never say what I want to say.
I never say I want to hold you naked in my
old, skinny, wrinkled arms.


Duane Locke

Posted over on Electric Acorn