Someday, if life and DNA allow,
I will be elderly. My flesh will lose
its muscle tone and sink, as if snuggled
tenderly against low-density bones.
If neural connections still work—if poems
still beckon me when I open my eyes,
waking from sleep, from the nightly journey
into the glimmering dark—then I won’t
complain: I promise. Just give me a pen
and my notebook, a cup of tea, and I’ll
write down the words that are planted in me
like seeds from the whirlwind. And I will be
grateful for each grain of sand till the last
one—my final portion of life—slips through.
copyright © 2020 by Barbara Quick