Slip-Sliding (Poetry)

I check my bones
count the feelings travelling the length
of who the mirror’s seen
a hundred thousand times ...

A full complement
but thinner — frailer — leaning like
an old old house much weathered by
unfriendly winds that shake and undermine

I sense my structure is unsound
with flaws their gismos cannot track
too deep too subtle for the screen
to register the slim pale crack

of each divide — my growth rings split
my mind’s a tree — a timber frame
dry and rotting weaves the sapless vein
while wooden limbs account for every slip and slide
                                                obeying tilted ground