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The man about eighty is unusually jaunty
His wife tries to disguise her pot belly
Glancing at others, thinking loud obvious thoughts
He wears a lapel and gold buttons adorn his cuffs
Head shining beneath unforgivable artificial light
Her forehead is stretched and keening years unspoken
But they are each other’s people
Greeting guests from out of town with the ease of familiarity
Strange birds and ordinary, they each hold up
A piece of their time
As we all do
And it scares me
To see in you, another era
Feel that invariable distancing
As you age faster and I stay
Conning the world I’m still a kid
Something easy to do with a neat figure and shiny hair
You can last in the artifice, make it your own
freckled fancy
Then comes a time
As I have seen in you
veins arching on the back of your trembling hand
When the game is harder
And you become at last
The age of you
Seeing the distance between
Then and now like a well deserved yawn
Dividing and multiplying
I have not the body of a mother
For I was never a mother
I have not the stories of ruling
For I never sought to rule
The spilled ink on my hands
Is the same shade as when
I did handstands on sweaty gym mats
In this time, I haven’t changed enough
While you are edging closer
To that moment when even
Adults as perpetual children
Must relinquish their tenuous claim
I see it stitched plain on your face
As if written with broad stroke
Both shocking and expected
We have so much in common
The years spent tightly woven together
But now you race ahead —
And I am still
Waiting my turn, curling my hair in
My pinkie finger
Caught between young mother’s
Whom I can never be
With my reducing, fluttering hormones
And women freed of children
Launching once again
Their second coup
Whilst I am tiring of freedom
I have stood with you both
Whilst being neither one
And the mask of me is not of my choosing
But a trick of light
Or memory
Betrayed rarely
As I thrive
In my duration
Not yet where you are
Not yet where you are