Awakening at 60
I surrender to the passion
Between two branches
Listening to a flame
Choke in a lake of wax.
The sun sets on
What I have left of life.
A child glitters
From midnight windows
Behind my smile
The hard edge of hunger
Goes from my plate
To his and we pick the street clean.
I am an accomplice
To gulls, beating their wings,
Refusing to go south.
I watch the path in front of me
Vanish among the dry words
Of escaping leaves.