Poor Hemingway

     In a recurring dream you never talk about, you model women's undergarments in front of the mirror, experiment with tones of cosmetics, brush your hair and your beard, never daring to shave it. 
    Afternoons at the bullfights, you feel your age, feel it going out of you. The days are unmerciful in their constant march toward completion. You reiterate the naive questions of young boys free from alcoholism, depression, the distorted math of an old man who craves recognition and fears discovery. You're an iceberg. An elephant. A titan. 
    A few decades later, you'd have been welcomed at the tables of  Burroughs and Mailer trading onerous theories about education and manhood, pay for several rounds of drinks to the fatherhoods that didn't transpire. 
    Alas, poor Hemingway, you abbreviated the plight of madness. You'd slay the old form like a champion. Plug the sad eyes of ammunition into their bores, straighten the barrel, take aim at the mystery of you. 
    Bang. The look of it all devoid of expression. Just chips of blood & bone hanging in your beard.