Ninety-Something Poem by Miranda Arocho

Mr. Black was in line for another black coffee
While holding the flags of rebellion on his name tag
In the midst of enlisting the confederates that stalk me

Said, “No sugar, no cream, ” with the stern ambition bitter fists were gripping
As black as it gets while chewing his grits
Just another useless reality he’d previously seen slipping

Between the caffeine he would pour
Committed twists with his pen
He came to no end
But a senior citizen

Ninety-something by the time we met
Told Mr. Black I’d help him regain some youth through the consumption of worthless connections society provides
And write him a poem,
Said, “Let’s see what the population decides.”

Crumbling illustration, the paint was dry before we could keep going
And Mr. Black hated it all
By the numbers, my disgusted critics were growing

He never really thought to tell himself what I was telling the world;
He was too old for it all by then

Not that springing young man
Some odd ages in the past
When you’re old from the start?
The irony cannot last

Just looking at him,
Wearily brought out of denial with the intentions he’d clear
Smoking a pipe
Playing records from the 50s while drinking a 50 year old beer

The eulogy of a republican, a stubborn, closet beatnik like him
When in the eye of public statistics, a colonial stone thrower
Yet a poet when the lights would dim

Mr. Black was a hack in his day, too
He’d cross paths with other artists and simply say it’s not true
And on top of it all,
With tobacco seeds he’d enlighten
He’d of rocked it all
On the noose his self-abusing mind would soon tighten

He could have coughed off the lofty,
Softest sophists he’d ever shot me
But Mr. Black was about to die,
His third eye blind to the naked desperation his palpitations have cried

In his dry breath, his distance a dozing off cause
A coffin crafted by waves of black lobotomy
So all Mr. Black did was order black coffee