Invested

These days
I worry about bulls and bears.
Not the kind
that I used to brawl
with on the streets.
The kind on Wall Street.
I read about companies
I never heard of
twenty years ago.
Study charts.
Watch prices move.
Wonder why anybody
would willingly spend
this much time
staring at numbers.
I put five dollars here.
Two dollars there.
Become emotionally attached
to a stock
I barely understand.
Created my own fun
portfolio with rules and
punishments for naughty stocks.
Apparently
I'm an investor now.

Then there's golf.
Standing over a little white ball
trying to convince myself
I know what I'm doing.
Watching instructional videos,
taking lessons and notes.
One good shot
can keep me coming back
for another hundred bad ones.
I want to improve.
I want to hit it farther.
Straighter.
Maybe someday
I want to stop losing balls
in water hazards
and the woods.

Then the doctor visits.
Weight.
Cholesterol.
Blood pressure.
Words I never thought
would become part
of my vocabulary.
Now I pay attention.
I look at what I eat.
I think about what I put
into this body
that somehow
has carried me out of the slime.

And then there are the cats.
Three of them.
Three personalities.
Three tiny dictators
who have somehow convinced me
their breakfast
is the most important event
in the history of civilization.
I feed them.
Clean up after them.
Talk to them
like they understand me.
Maybe they do.

And somewhere in all this
is the strangest thing.
I used to live
to drink.
That was about it.
Find the bottle.
Find the night.
Disappear inside it.
Wrap up in it, like a
dark blanket.
I was a shallow shell
of a human being
walking around
looking for the next way
not to be myself.

Now I'm worried
about cholesterol.
I'm watching
the stock market.
I'm trying to fix
my golf swing.
I'm feeding three cats
who don't give a damn
about my golf swing
or the stock market.
And I'm writing.
Still writing.
Still observing.
Still learning.
Still screwing things up.

Maybe getting older
isn't just watching
things disappear.
Maybe it's discovering
how much there is
to pay attention to.
Bulls and bears.
Golf balls.
Doctors.
Cats.
Books.
Poems.
The ridiculous mechanics
of an ordinary life.
And somehow
I want to see
what happens next.