Back To Her Youth By Margo Channing

She is aware of distance, a distance that replaces smooth with wrinkle, that adds weight to where it once fell away, a distance as controllable as a storm, as time itself. It feels likes a rope thinning, each frayed line of twine aims to remind that no longer is she considered fine and soon a lover’s 'mine and thine' will drown in a bottle of wine, corked. Mirrors reflect a youth in famine, spotted with age like a dalmatian with rheumatic limbs. Breath stinking. Like the missing t in her name she wonders where her ingenue years are. They curled into smoke, melted ice, a suitcase misplaced. She hopes in finger crossed wishes that he is not aware of this distance, this distance that seemed to matter not when they met but these years eight between them spread slowly, a molasses seeping over skin and sex, showing him her true self – aged, past – dry dirt on an earth that only celebrates pastures new.