Myopathy, AIDS and a Few Other Things

Summer’s muscles become autumn branches

Spindly things without romances

And on the streets the leaves have dances

Taunting all your lost last chances

The taut fine skin becomes onion paper

Crinkly, wrinkly, to close the semester

My meager tome proves I’m an imposter

Who scribbled for naught in a cloister

The head is shorn of all its hair

The people gawk and laugh and stare

My fists would like to shout beware

But they’re exhausted with despair

My stunning, sterling acumen

Is a man done in by estrogen

The brilliant brain is beaten, barren

All my thoughts, clichéd, common

The member that once thrusted with pride

Withers and wanes and wants to hide

Implies manhood’s not bona fide

Leads me straight toward suicide

Copyright, David Gottfried, 2005