Frail Bodies (Poetry)

How I envy them
their complete unknowingness
their failure to conceive
how those so-fluid limbs
will eventually
let them down
how their youth
holds onto the myth and
they quite honestly believe
the body will not fail.

And they will not notice —
miss the very moment
when it starts —
the muscle slow to pull
its weight
the reflex not so fast
the morning leap from bed
a dulled impulse
the totting up of days
binds like a slipknot tether.

Eyes once so clear
lose focus — blur
on what is close
and dream of those horizons lost
the distant peaks
the snowy breasts
of a familiar land
fresh and young
and full of song
when forever meant forever —
words and flesh.

And love knows
it should be that way —
unchanging —
time should leave alone
the springing step
the singing blood
and all the rushing joy
of youth —
not steal it slyly
while they smile in sleep.

Once skin has sagged
and blood and bone
have thinned
to a shadow of
a former self
and youth has aged overnight
then memory has
its sudden proof —
every body’s frail

there dawns
a truth.