Febrary 15, 2009

I've been growing out my beard
to see what I'll look like after I die.
Surely my cheeks will sink a bit more
and my eyes will dry, small prunes
beneath my zip lock lids.

But as the old wives say, my beard
will keep on growing.

Surely science has disproved them by now,
but I can't help thinking as I shave today,
once more raising my bald chin to the wind
that 2 months and 5 days after my death,
close friends will confuse me for Russian
revolutionaries, aging professors, and Shel
Silverstein, whose poetry I once enjoyed,
long ago, when still among the living.