Old Scores

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I feel cantankerous in my dotage today, wanting
to pick a fight. Although Time is laughing at me
and having none of it, there's enough other evil
in the world--an abundance really—to choose

from: amoral cynics, for instance, who lied
youngsters off to war then frantically
authorized torture, trying to justify their
deeds, who didn't care what I thought but

found flag-draped coffins distasteful and hid
the wounded away while proudly wearing flag
pins on their lapels and flaunting patriotic
bumper stickers. Then there are, too, those

uniformed despots of long-knived Africa and
those immaculately coiffed and tailored money
changers and Ponzi schemers. Yes, there
are so many out there that I wonder why,

at this late date, I clench my arthritic
fists and think of James Colwin, that bully
from sixth grade at Cowart Elementary School.
He held my face in a mud puddle until water

in my burning lungs gave me enough frightened
strength to heave him off my back; who dropped
out of school at fifteen, stole a car, then
slammed into a guardrail so hard it came

through the windshield and pinned his head
against the back seat. Odd that this old
personal nemesis can still set my teeth to
grinding, still tighten my doddering, flabby

jaws so that today I'd like to hunt him down
somewhere in the dark alleyways of Hell, to step
from the shadows and snarl at him, however comically,
"James Colwin, you son-of-a-bitch, I've got you now."