Why I Ride a Dirt Bike Still at Seventy

I used to be a genius by the count
of Terman and Binet and Wechsler too,
and everyone I met without a doubt
agreed those standard measurements were true.

My thoughts were fractal curves and Mandelbrots
so intricate in shape and brilliant hue,
vast crystal webs of ever branching thought,
before I hit my head a time or two,

or seven, if the count’s to be precise,
from football, motorcycles, and the like,
and after sixty, I concussed it twice,
when, racing in the woods, I crashed my bike.

But though thorn-tangled thoughts now clog my brain,
given the chance, I’d do it all again.

©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS (12/1/12)