An aging body is like a worn-in shoe
Of memory's creased and comfty home
Whose hard-won unique and smoothened shape
Resists shiny shells that so often break
In the ruddy claws of circumstance,
And leaves pain-foot blooded pointed shod
For another fighting cat.

In age it's time to breathe
Sweatered in wooly purple sock
On a green park bench to rest a bit
On days of bronzy earthiness
And watch the birds fly against the sky
Sixteen birds - or sixteen candles -
Lost within the wind.

And in a way it's a relief to watch
Even past the friendships lost
To know that our roles were not all there was
Like the shoes too-efficiently tossed aside
The woman that remains inside, beyond
Daughter Lover Mother Wife
Was trashed but not forgotten.