The body has a different relationship
with space now.
Disrespectful of distance before,
it now moves with a new sobriety,
motion slowed by a deliberation
barely perceptible,
as if, with each step,
asking for admission into the space in front,
a little readier to recoil from air
fraught with unwelcome possibility
imagined by creeping frailty,
erstwhile swagger
replaced by a simmering, private anger,
shedding bits of remembered energy,
its age unlearning the freedom of coordination,
edging ever closer to
a reunion, across many decades,
with its former self,
the one who toddled forth with
the same caution,
just much more optimistic.
I used to be excited on Fridays.
I used to have interesting plans.
My weekends were non-stop hectic,
my time was in high demand.
Now I live in repeated patterns,
I’m a servant to boring routines.
A fleshy teenage automaton,
waiting for science to intervene.
Oh, I'm readier than a girl-scout,
I’m more prepared than a marine,
I’ll be out the door like a cartoon coyote,
the second I’m shot with vaccine.
the loftier the ideal we set to attain the readier we ought to be ourselves to sacrifice!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
15 January 2018