swearing a blue streak as he took his dog on their daily walk.
The two of them might have won a contest for
Pet and Owners Who Look Alike.
Wizened and sputtering, they ambled the street with irregular gait,
pausing now and then to look about, angry and defiant,
as if to challenge others to silence them.
I imagined both had survived strokes,
freeing the from whatever inhibitions they may once have had.
Did anger lead to stroke, or stroke unleash anger, or both?
There was no real substance to the invective,
but more than a little poetry.
In my self-assured youth
I found it sad, but also amusing,
and so remote and distant from my own experience.
Now, fifty-odd years later,
that reality seems far less alien.
--Ken M., Adult