Nose Hair – Ode

A Toast to a Man at Mid-Life

A toast — to signs of aging that mark our manly passage!

To aching back and creaking joints and lusty anal gaseage!

But surest sign that we’ve arrived at full-blown midlife level

Is best confirmed when in our nose we find a lengthy tendril

That just when all our other hairs show flecks of grey or thinning

Announces to our nasal pores that it is just beginning

To show how long (and curly too) a virile man by nature,

As sign of maturation true, can grow a stoutly nose hair.

No great display for public view, it quietly expresses

Its potency in privacy through nostril itch distresses.

And though its ticklish, tweakish ways may set our noses dripping

And sneezing bouts become the norm of midlife’s onward creeping,

Be proud of what that hair denotes, and let it be a symbol

Of virile manhood still intact as hairs from nostrils dangle,

And when it gets too much to bear, this manly goober skimmer,
Then take in hand that nasal thatch, and thin with nose hair trimmer.

–John Anderson, 2002.