Embers Poem by Doug Lane

I've made
the mistake
of looking up
on FB
girls
I once knew
30 or 35 years
ago
and beholding women
no longer bewitchingly beautiful,
some ravaged by drugs,
others by tragedy
or politics
or religion
or disease
or domesticity
or gluttony
or exhaustion
or yoga
or terminal self absorption
and always, of course,
by time.

Don't get me wrong.
I also know women
who have grown
more beautiful
with age.
Not more sexually magnetic,
more beautiful,
perhaps wiser,
more creative,
kinder, more loving
and lovable.

And I'll be the first
to say
my own looks
are entirely gone.
But that's someone else's
problem.
I don't have to look
at myself.
I don't have to decide
if I attract myself.

I just know
nubile women
take one look
and uniformly and instantly
decide
I'm not attractive
to them.
In fact, I've become
invisible
to them.
They look
straight through
me.

But those bewitching creatures
who were once so
entrancing
to me
aren't invisible
to me
now.

Rather,
they're like beautiful houses
which have burned down
and are now piles of hot ash
glowing and smoking
in the predawn light,
saying
"You'll find no shelter here.
I'm roofless.
Try to walk into
my ruins
and I'll give you
a hot foot.

"Did you think
you were insightful
because you found me
attractive?
Thousands of men
....and women....
did.
It didn't take insight
to be turned on
by me.

The best you can do now,
if you want to come closer,
is to warm yourself
near my embers
in the predawn
cold."