New Year Resolutions

[BobBradshaw]

New Year Resolutions

By my mid thirties I looked
like an old man, two thirds
of my hair a white fog.

The white hairs were like notes
warning of foreclosure,
arriving more and more frequently.

But did I change my life, set off on a yacht,
circumnavigating the globe?

No, I ignored my whitening hair.
I didn't bother with the ruse
of dyes or sprays.

When I saw my father laid out
on a gurney, his white hair
like a fright wig, his face frozen

as if pulled from an avalanche,
there it was again. Family history.

I vowed to change my life, to live
at the gym. To eat healthy.

Like my protestations of love
to a masseuse, her hands geniuses,
I had made sincere vows
before.