Ledge

The man is ruined.
His wrinkled
brow cowers with undeserved life
in the rainfall of his waning years.
Like a stoic philosopher’s bust
he looks on listlessly
with a pupil-less pride
from a deep milky resolve
into the ghost pastures
where children could scream
youthfully with mouthfuls
of cornelian games alongside
rabbits and royalty.
But those children are coiled now,
swimming as pearls cast by St. Patrick,
and nothing is left to fold delicately
into the old man,
now left with only
the barbs of swollen memories,
sullied by their novel, inflated looming.