At 50
How many times have I misjudged
the fondness and the pity,
the glinting and the burnished,
the silly and the witty?
The generous, the selfish act,
the color and the shade,
the pattern of rigidity,
the sense of escapade.
The bitter from the merely tart,
the treacly from the sweet,
the overgrown from the ripe,
the void from incomplete.
The fish refracting from itself,
the footprint in the snow,
the person, paused, as if to stay,
but twice prepared to go.
Paul Lamar lives with his husband, Mark, in Albany, NY, where he teaches, reviews theater for a local paper, and conducts a chorus.