SHELF LIFE

You hit sixty
and you start to smell
your expiration date;
and your culture--
if you live
in one of the world's
money jungles
--smells it, too.

If any attention
was paid
to your youth
your youth
has been stamped
and paid for:
Nothing
owed.
It's cruel
and harsh,
I know,
but really
very
unemotional.

I mean,
what can you
really offer?
except wisdom?
and we know
what the world
does with that.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2014