Once upon his smile
And beyond the cocky grin
Hid his fear of the above
And empty confidence within.

His smile was always wide
As a smile might be measured
With little reservation
For the price and cost of pleasures.

But time would soon render
To the payments to be tendered
To settle tabs of folly now, and those past due
And to follow orders of all smiles and grins be removed.

With the smiles long gone
And cocky grins forgotten
He wears an old man’s face
His canvass of defeat
With eyes mirrored and receded in life’s retreat.

Nowhere to look now
No reason to grin
The world was his once
Grasped with the flash of his smile
And that cocky grin
All worn for too short a while.

— Greg Collins lives in Kansas City.