Revised, from 2018.

It has taken me
nearly sixty two years
four thousand glasses of whisky
uncounted pounds of herb
pills upon pills
a taste for killer’s thrills
dozens of bodies held close
whose souls I kept at arm’s length
and countable but daunting numbers
of lost hours spent
chasing words into caverns
and trash heaps 

to realize I might have a hearing problem

I might have misheard 
my mother 
when she said 
don’t have kids
they will ruin your life

What she might have said was
don’t have kids
you will ruin
their lives

but thank God I followed her advice

for surely
surely
surely
either way
she was right