Once again,

it's my time

to read the tiny letters

on the distant wall.

It's the torture equivalent

of soldiers playing

Barry Manilow music

at full volume

to break a prisoner.

Really I'm already

willing to surrender

but the doctor insists

my eyes drop to

the next line down

where a blur that

could be a G or a 6

or a P or a 0 awaits.

He won't be satisfied

until I declare,

"Okay, I can't read

the damn letters and numbers.

So shoot me."

Instead, he writes

out a prescription

for a pair of glasses.

More even than

a plastic surgeon,

he's about to change the way

I will appear to

both myself and the world

and he treats

the whole affair

so matter-of-factly,

as if wearing

an optical contraption

on my face

is a lot less demeaning

than not being able

to tell G from 6 or P from 0.

I figured I would grow old gracefully,

not technologically.

I guess I didn't read the small print.

And now I need help to.