…since yesterday morning

when I discovered I have old man’s hands.

Skin like old parchment.

Blood thinner hands,

purple, blue and black bruises

smudging the backs of my hands.

The skin of my fore-arms wrinkled,

crinkled like aged tobacco

draping the lump shape from a muscle pop

in the quick start of a race between the bridges

on the Hudson River

in an eight-man shell where I sat the fifth seat

to anchor the crew.

My young hands vice-gripping the oar.

Fifty years ago.

Now it’s a muscle with a tenuous insertion point

on the bone,

like the rest of me with a tenuous grip

on life.

The spirit’s still willing,

but that willing is weakening and waning.

How did that happen?

And when?

My wife still loves me as we

hold tight to each other

like we are each others life

and I am not drooling into my porridge,

yet,

and I can watch Jeopardy without the fear

that I have forgotten everything I once knew.

But, though Death is near,

(certainly nearer than it was two days ago)

it is the sight of the back of my hands

that brings me to tears

for on them I see the years

like waves stacking up on each other

before they all crash onto the beach

and everything I clutch that’s dear to me

disappears

into the sand,

out of reach

like the deeps of the sea.