Looking back 
at your past
and pointing 
and shouting until breath 
is punched out of you
by time
and awareness of time
as you tell everyone:

back there is the age 
when I was 
at my best, most fully me;
now that I am
no longer that
I do not know who
this older gentleman pointing
back to me must be
although he bears my name 
and my memories.
I am not myself these days.

This is what ripening 
to your peak on the tree
then falling to the ground
and left to spoil there
does to you.

Not to me.

I’m no
gentleman. I ripened
after I fell
onto this ground and
on this ground
these seeds of mine
can matter more
than I did
and because I never was
good enough to pick
when I was on that tree,
I am perfect now.