Structural Integrity

The sun is a witness I didn’t invite.

I was feeling almost handsome in the low light

until the rearview mirror caught the glare

and showed me the single, silver ear-hair.

It’s stiff as a wire, a fishing line fluke.

I pinch at my skin and it feels like a rebuke;

the fold stays peaked for three seconds too long,

like a piece of old paper where the crease is wrong.

The light turns green and the traffic moves on.

I’m left with the sense that the structural dawn

has passed me by while I sat at the light,

leaving me here in the afternoon blight.