When I was young and wooly
we all could laugh and tease
someone would say "your mom!"
I could always handle these

Now, as I've grown older
I've grown delicate and weak
My friends must check their tongues
They feel uneasy when we speak

There are some things they just don't say
some problems not addressed
Although I feel ashamed inside
Sometimes I think its best

And so I keep my hat on
and keep my dignity inside
My close friends I keep distant
In hopes my fears will soon subside

What they don't see can't hurt me
But, I can see it in their face
They know I feel uneasy
So they all give me my space

They know I have a problem
One that I cannot admit
And so, I have my hat
and I keep it under it

Despite my many friends I'm lonely
Despite my needs, I am alone
You see my problems now are bigger
It is my hair that hasn't grown

Perhaps one day my friends will help me
They won't be silent anymore
They will make me face the question
Why do I feel so insecure?

You see, I know my friends, they like me
With, or without my hat
It doesn't matter how I look
As long as I am honest
Then we all can live with that

There are too many hairs
I keep blowing off my keyboard
To pretend they aren’t there
And that they can be ignored.
I can't pretend I have gone blind,
I am admitting they are all there
And that they come from me;
They truly are my own hair.

It must be true, I hazard
Because I can see my scalp.
It’s a situation from aging
For which there is no help.
I have long expected it.
It will do no good to whine.
The disappearing tonsure
I needs must claim as mine.

And so I placate myself
With selfish comparisons
I may look older than others
But much better than some.
Not many decades ago
I once thought sixty was old.
I am thankful for my friends
Who decided not to scold.

They knew I was being
Just the least bit callow.
But they avoided labeling me
With words like vain and shallow.
So, perhaps the vain part
I have with me even now,
And I would abandon that
If I could figure out how.

this man’s been gone to ground
a while,
and earlier i’d seen him
smoking something
out from his pen
[a contraption of deceit
like the photo
he carries of himself
from 1960]
place bets: he was exciting!
a real man
of daring-do! of action!
no doubt he had
his fill of women in his day!
why he gropes at them still
despite his wizened form of head