The salmon come in from the Pacific,
fighting their way for a thousand miles
against swift-flowing waters, leaping
upwards, challenging the power of cataracts,
beaten back but hurling themselves upward
again and again, courageous, indefatigable,
reaching at last, bruised and exhausted,
the quiet pools in which they were spawned.
The females drop their roe; the males
enliven them with sperm.
Then their shiny fishiness dulls, their skins turn gray,
and they lie over and die.

The world grows warm; glaciers melt.
Likewise my hairline recedes
more rapidly than formerly.
My skin lies in excess over my bones, sere
and wrinkling like old vellum
mottled bark of an ancient sycamore.
In their sockets my teeth wobble.
My eyes cloud with rheum.

I have forgotten the quadratic equation
the square root of 2, the value of pi
the aroma of tobacco smoke
the fumes of whiskey taken neat
and languorous pleasure
the softness of lips.

In heavy rain I drive on the Interstate
dull to the monotony of the rubbery metronome
the windshield wipers' countdown,
blinded in the tire-spray of eighteen-wheeled semis,
the florid splash of lights,
relentless, northward to Newark.

What did you say?
I can't hear you.

...............................................................Israel Lewis