A Fear of Old Age

              by Jack Anderson

The dread, always,

of coming to this:

to sit

day after day

chain smoking

in a soiled undershirt

beside the cracked window

of a fifth-floor walkup

on Railroad Avenue

with stains on the wall, 

dead flies on the sill,

no hot water,

and the cold water rusty;

to sit

smoking and coughing

watching dust settle down,

freights rumble by,

and beyond the tracks

the river flowing

gray and tedious

while on the other,

the opposite, shore

the distant lights

of someplace else 

rise up in a glory

more awesome than Rome

and now unreachable

as anyplace anywhere.

From: Getting Lost in a City Like This. Copyright 2009.