For a Neches River Poet

Milton Jordan

December 7, 2025

How'd I end up an octogenarian

spending more time at health care clinics

than at this near abandoned writing desk,

and why are my best friends testing

routes into or around tomorrow? 

And why, tracking my route toward ninety,

does it seem crucial to stay at this desk,

and they, some younger, stay longer at theirs?

If urologists and oncologists 

speak confidently of our health

and psychologists think they know our mind,

and cannot wait to explain us to ourselves,

what do poets know of lives lived or looming

and how shall we show them to others?

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.