It's true, what they say:
Time turns back
In dreamland.

Hair, somehow
Thickening,

Beard,
Oddly thinning,

Belly
Obscured handily
By a small, thatched pillow.

The man

Looks clumsily
Like his father:

They share the same
Squashed nose.

But
His breaths,
They reflect not

The heavy-handed heft
Of his ancestral chest
Rising deeply,

But rather the lighter airs
Of a simpler time

Resting gently
On his eyelids.