Half C

Ray Carver said it would spell trouble

when a writer ‘found himself

reaching for his thesaurus and

then Websters in that order’

and tonight when I went to Roget’s

looking for ideas on being fifty years old

I thought naturally of it meaning half of a tough

century - or the compromise of fifty-fifty

and the meek neutrality that implies,

so I’m really in Carver’s trouble

with two halves of an idea, but maybe it’s

yin yang and when a man gets this far

he knows how to carry both parts

with some kind of dignity.