When I first started teaching at my current school, I was 32, and the mamas of the Upper School students looked matronly to me.  Now 30 years later, the students’ mamas look like jail bait, and those very first students I taught look matronly.

Which begs the question, what do I look like?

Click arrow above for sound.

Selfie

For every tatter in its mortal dress . . . 

Now, when the man in the mirror stares back,

it’s not my father I see,

but old WH Auden himself,

that mask of overindulgence,

pocked and puckered,

eyes rheumy, cross-hatched with red,

the tattered, bruised bags beneath

stuffed with hobo rags – used t-shirts,

yellowed boxers – plus a half pint of rot gut —

artifacts of excess, of bad habits

embraced like brothers,

boon companions for many a year.