Past Fifty

Who knew I would feel 

young? Except in 

my bones, poor posture,

parched mornings 

after nights of bottles 

with mountain poets,

patio music, chosen brothers, 

liberated sister-mothers

toasting the post pandemic 

opening of this 

end of the road town.

How can I say it?

I used to run and run.

I know that high.

My body did my bidding.

And so much wanting.

Such a drug. It wanes.

The constant longing

for more than life

can offer a young mother

already rich with children.

Joy and regret.

Strange bedfellows.

All of that in me today

in the quiet, and my love

dozing here on the sofa,

his long legs draped across

my lap, hands folded

on his belly, head tilted up

on a pillow, beautiful

in that awful pose.

We both and all of us

are for the pyre.

It’s not a metaphor.

We’ve watched it burn.

Absorbed its warmth.

But now! We are alive, 

my love and I, these bones,

turning to look at each other

from time to time,

my writing arm in the sun.