At The Y

The other old men in the locker room step softly on the wet floor.

They wear only pink gray skin stretched over their noisy bones.

They say:  how ya doin’, and make little grunts as they dry their feet.  

These aren’t the boys who bullied me in showers sixty years ago.

These aren’t the men who drank themselves stupid in dark corners.

These are not even the mad kings in special chairs, not the fathers.

These are the old men standing by green lockers, trying to remember 
what they stored there, what they forgot, what still abides.