Jockeying for Position

At the double nickel, my beard came in white.
Not like snow.
More the color of paper burned to cinder
A molecular transformation
With the appearance of frost

It smiles, the beard
With something of the bard
The revolutionary
The prophet
The lover
Within.

We are jockeying for position
The beard and I.
He does not like the way I drive
Saying it’s unfitting the image.
And I reject the way he walks
Stumbling, half-bent
Like an old soldier
Mindless of the combat earning him his stories.

We are unlikely partners.
He, unwilling to smooth my cheeks
Appearing as lunar plaines
Without heat, or charm.
I, unwilling to be the pirate he would like.
I am not Jimmy Buffet, conquering the Caribbean
With a salt-stained guitar
And Capt. Morgan in tow.

This is our Treaty of Pusan.
We will gaze with the apprehension that comes from distrust
Across the chin’s 38th parallel.