23

Childhood slipping, youth wasting First fruits of decay, tasting Adolescence waving, maturity calling Time doing its duty, unstalling Death to birth, we wish, we cry But age to age, we live to die Age Irrelevance in some numerals Our inevitable funerals Where they’ll lead us, no one knows Doubts brewing, questions asking Dreams unmasked and unmasking Future unnerving, past regressing Present unknowing, unknown, obsessing Birth to death, our constant state Tragic irony, we celebrate 23 Numbers etched in my chronograph My only earned status: riffraff At time and fate and death, I laugh