In Dog-Years

Humans live
long in proportion to
what they don't

do. Lusty types
weather fast, their
skin turns to

leather before
forty. Monks
count their years

in scores,
walking robed. In
heaven, you live

forever. Comatose
humans are said to
hang on longest.

Ten years. Fifteen
years. Not long
in the grand

scheme, but an
eternity, considering
the debilitated

condition of crouching
near death. I
have lived my life

in dog-years, aging
seven times faster
than I need. Look,

they say,
he's twenty-three
but that's

one-hundred
and sixty-one
to you and me.

Originally appeared in The Paris Review.
© 1989 Patrick Martin

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© by Patrick Martin. All rights reserved. No duplication in any print or electronic format is permitted without express permission from the author.