An old man
wakes up,
and sits down at
his dinner table.
His wife no longer around,
and his friends having long abandoned him,
he is alone now.
He sometimes drinks tap water,
but not often.
He sometimes eats,
but never enough
to keep him healthy.
His hair is a very fine
white,
resembling
snow in the sunlight.
He sits hunched over
the dinner table,
eating slowly,
the fork in his hand
seeming to move
centimeters at a time,
shaking.
His dentures finally
clamping down
on his food,
chewing loudly,
nobody around to
criticize him.
And he eats bread
and luke-warm mashed potatoes,
just enough food
to keep himself from dying.
And he has a hearing aid,
he can barely hear,
but he likes to watch
football games,
and black-and-white movies,
and occasionally
raunchy women
displaying themselves
on camera.
He has lost the urge to masturbate,
but he still enjoys
the bodies of
young women.
And eventually
he will die,
and there will be a small
tribute to him
in the local obituaries,
and relatives who have
long ago forgotten him
and the friends who were once
close to him
will show up
to remember
that he was once
alive
and
young.