Veins
Day by day, it seems,
The veins in the tops of my hands
Rise more and more pronouncedly
To the surface of my thinning skin,
Almost as if they're planning an imminent escape.
Perhaps these blue-green conduits
Returning my life-fluid to its reservoir
Are speaking to me, at my throbbing heart's behest,
With the only vocabulary they know —
The irrepressible language of old age —
Alerting me to change's graven dangers underway,
Hoping to prepare me for its less-than-subtle appropriations,
Its sadistic effronteries,
My once-robust body's encroaching frailties,
The approaching silence that will embalm my arteries.
Tonight, dining alone,
Staring, once again, at my protruding veins,
I'm beginning to believe that they might be back roads
Beckoning me to follow them beyond the edges of a map,
Into that uncharted territory so many know.
07/26/09 - (1)
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