“Old Men at the Gym” By Matt Hubert © 2011

Shouting inside jokes and shallow one-liners
across cloth-curtained shower stalls,
the old men at the gym mark their territory.
Their flabby bodies—wrinkled, sagging, flabby bodies
invade the invisible barriers
between my locker space and theirs.
Eyes straight ahead, staring only
at the blank white wall back of my locker,
I will myself to become invisible too.
It works. The old men at the gym
carry on in conversation, mocking each other’s weight.
“One at a time!” Old Man One says in jest.
as the others erupt in laughter.
I hurriedly dress myself, tying my necktie
without the aid of a mirror
in fear of what I might see
or might not see
40 years from now.