I’m turning into one of those old men, the kind
I used to watch and listen to carefully as a kid
standing on street corners smoking
back when old men did such things:

on a day off work, briar pipe in my mouth
paper coffee cup in hand, examining the world
to stay out of my own head.

One must learn to stand up against the weather –
which is largely preparation. The old men I remember
probably weren’t old, in the way I’m not really old

but I imagine how I look to my four-year-old granddaughter
this beard time-bleached white — the kind
youth-chasing men shave off to pretend
their virility at 20 is staring back at them
in the mirror as they gargle.

I feel much less wise than those old men
but I, too, have made my peace with regret.
This world is preparing itself to pass me by
so I buy new boots with heels to dig into the ground
spit,stare it straight in the eye.

My erasure will be of my own choosing though not
my own timing. The immortality
of old men smoking on street corners
comes in the passing on of the space
like a chair in a longstanding poker game.