Oldguy stares into the mirror:
iguana, he thinks, turkey, turkey
buzzard with reddened eyes,
Basset-sad and rheumy, wrinkled
bags beneath; fleshy beak,
hair tufting from nostrils and ears,
skin turned hide, with blotches
on blotches, scars on scars. His frame
looks bent as an old jalopy’s. So
the young look the other way,
hurry past. They warehouse oldsters
as if age were contagious, which,
in a way, it is. But there, beneath
the gnarled and dented surface:
top-fuel dragster, 426 hemi, revving
at the line, fired on nitromethane—
so to speak.