I made a promise to myself that if I ever made it to eighty,

then I’d start using heroin,

not because I’ve ever tried it,

or even had the desire to,

but because I’ve always thought of myself as open to new experiences,

but I probably won’t tell my wife

sitting at the edge of the world,

waiting for the fall,

yet nothing makes it comes,

not even the several hundred nudges

for it all to plunge

cold, wandering and toothless

without any liquids for miles around,

as meandering dilettantes and messiahs

pull and tug in discussions of who is best and who is greater,

when the answer to everything in life is Bo Jackson

Fred Aiken Writing