Too grizzled now to play the wunderkind,
too apt to sit where I have often sat,
I, Aaron Vaughn Poochigian, now that
my nose has thickened and my hair has thinned,

do hereby most imprudently rescind
the rulebook I propounded, all my sessile
growths and impediments, so that, a vessel
beholden only to the waves and wind,

I may be free to drift out of the bay.
Hereafter I shall whiff the fragrant coasts
of Araby, Dundeya, and Cathay

and, further out, beyond the round world’s spalling
margin, hear Odysseus’s ghosts
squeaking like hinges, hear the Sirens calling.