Self-portrait at 31

Difficult to remember who you are:

Feet ruined by their scrimmage with the dirt;

Tangled guesswork in each knee, whose sport

Is striding like an elephant in air;

Impatient hands that riot to keep still

(They always did); timid little teeth

That slip the spirit through your crooked mouth;

Weak lungs; strained larynx; similes that fail.

You're thirty-one. The disappointment burns.

(Outside it's morning, and the stars are dust.)

You touch the mirror, desperate to be lost

In something more substantial than this light,

But all you feel is your reluctant heartbeat,

The disappearing person, the dead end.

Slothrop: Too much Philip Roth and not enough Carl Brutananadilewski, looks like.