Listen, they’ll tell you
good health is everything,
but some things are better.
I have lived in rivers of egg yolk,
once drank a whole pan of bacon grease
on a dare, one Sunday morning in my
long underwear, when I was about your age
and all of us young fellows knew
we would die sooner or later anyway,
and whether “later” or “sooner”
didn’t seem as big a deal as it does now
with minds clouded by age
and that feeble intention to have
more time and more and more and more,
and to die as an old, dry twig
rather than a blade of grass, still green.