The Line (Poetry)

I don’t recall the exact moment
I crossed the line.
(Did a shudder mark its passing
like a quake far out to sea?)
It was a subtle trick of time —
a flipping over of the date
a tiny cloud crossing the face
of a sleepy pagan old-world god
whose name escapes me now.

There was no ceremony — nothing
marked or mapped the rite of passage
that casual walk across the stage
where everyone and no one’s sure
they noticed anything unusual —
how the hours closed around me
shaped my journey into age

while the distance stretches awkward
like it knows how I’ve been cheated
all the humdrum milestones hidden
as the world streams past my door.

Life is debris thin as flotsam
washed upon the rocks of morning
and memory can’t measure
who I was — how unprepared I was
that moment just before...