53rd Birthday
Starting to think it’s too late
for my mid-life crisis—
too poor to buy a sports car,
adverse to wounds for an earring.
I spend time
with my first drug, television,
watching Criterion films on disc &
wriggling into some position
where back pain lessens,
eyes won’t strain.
I’ve been swimming for exercise,
eating less,
chatting with my long-
distance lover on the phone.
I still smoke & pace the patio
while local wildlife
ambles by, not frightened,
unlike me. Your poems
are too momentary,
an editor once said of my work,
as if there were anything else
but this enchanting instant
to believe in. Another year
older, & here I am again,
capturing scraps
that flitter on the wind.
~
Threesome
Extra arms play a child’s game of keep-away.
He’s a giant holding up her hips as if Atlas,
having dropped the world, now tries to lift it.
She’s ecstatic, meta-erotic, as if she invited two
for tea, by which I mean foreplay, by which I mean
watching, being watched. The script writes itself, &
I have a part in a story to think about later
when noise of TV news has bludgeoned
all charm & fascination from my life.
~
Farewell Wind
Last burst of the year
toppled a metal tree
with Christmas lights,
pulled its eight-inch anchors
from soil loosened
by last night’s rain.
My mother sent me a photo:
white branches grounded,
bulbs aglow—
a colorful clown-car accident.
We’ve suffered storm damage, she texted,
a joke. I laughed
from my windowless room
where bright remains
of holidays can’t be seen.
~
Ace Boggess is author of eight books of poetry, most recently Tell Us How to Live (Fernwood Press, 2025), and the short-story collection Always One Mistake (Running Wild Press, 2026). His writing has appeared in Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hanging Loose, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia.