Read by the author.
A worry bead.
A rosary woe.
A raja’s pearl.
An ear-to-ear
Jack grin, seam
undoing
torso to limb.
Mean trick to
remind me
I am not young.
Hard knuckle under
flesh. A sailor’s knot.
A not knowing when,
or how. A warning
sent to send me
convalescing. Lest
I grow cocky in my age
and think myself
forever young.
Young is never
raging at the body,
that shell found on the
shore. More or
less the days
left. And more
and more complaints
to threaten
complacency.
Please.
Who will hold my hand
when I count
backward to ten?
The sun
a lamp above my head.
I, who avoided
surgery till now.
Am I only now
old?
Is old fear, and, if fear,
now is the time to deal with
here. So far
from any hands
to hold.