THINGS FALL APART

things fall apart eventually
aged by the usual culprit
not just any old abstract
this face and form an old habit
with a non-smile of accord
accepting of his state in sepia
in an old style and rumpled
wool suit – so far away in the last
century or the one before – 'fancier'
is etched on a wooden panel used
to mean something though little
or nothing now in the same sepia
though not faded – cats wisely stay
close to the birds that are at a caged
disadvantage and a prey at anytime
only as bright as the dogs that
gradually part from their master
and assume another density where
their well brushed coats brandish
a health and energy from long ago
before they and their master must go
and their images fade slowly from then
in the age nobody remembers
          cannot know now
                              fall apart