JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

I’m shrinking!

- the incredible shrinking man

five centimeters less in height

than I was five years ago

 

The hilly countries of my muscles

are slowly collapsing into

sorrowful wind-rippled deserts

 

Forgotten names and descriptions

murmur tauntingly like underground

rivers, as a trio of black crows

caw mocking from their telephone wire perches

we told you so, didn’t we

 

Yet somehow, the old emotional ghosts

eternal, ever present despite their age

still slither and slide in their cages like snakes

they need only occasional sips of blood or bile

and here and there an imagined insult

an unsuspecting glimpse over my shoulder

to stay alive. They whip tails, expose fangs

always poised to strike

 

I know they are part of my geography

and may only be banished from the earth

when I myself become a desert

my diminishing height, memories, concerns

and fears drying up and blowing away

in the uncaring wind