Wrinkles Poem by T. M. Isaac

The snickering man, on the corner of the street,
seems to know me from a different place;
perhaps, he knows who I was in a different lifetime.
His eyes running up and down my tired clothes,
scented confusion, senselessness, disdain;
shining now, brightly opaque, ever stronger than ever.

He has something to say to me, his kind always does...
whispering wisdom I neither cared for nor cared to know.
I know how little of reality is there;
yet, I sense it in his creased eyes,
smeared against the edges of his crocked smile:
I feel it slithering slowly, crawling along his wrinkled face.

I nod, as I pass on by,
somewhat different than before;
A different man in a different place,
doing my best not to hear and not to see.
Hoping next time I will have the will to listen,
or at least the decency to look away.