“Shuffled Marbles” by A. R. Ammons

Shuffled Marbles

Old men don’t care who they talk to, I

don’t know if you’ve ever noticed: they’ll

say to a stranger stepped into the elevator,

so, where are you going today, or

absorbed in a monologue, they’ll turn

suddenly to you as if you’d been there all the

time: these meaningless contorts from the irrelevant

baffle people, or else they just keep their

chins straight ahead as if they’d never been

called on: I want to say, what’s it

to you, you old fiddler twanger: old myself

I look into the panel mirror and wonder if

I just spoke to myself: by that time the

elevator has stopped somewhere: I get off.

— A. R. Ammons (23 March 1998)